Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND

Inward Investment

Mr. Hirst: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the aggregate value of the inward investment attracted to Scotland up to the latest practicable date by Locate in Scotland; and if he will make a statement.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Allan Stewart): As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced on her visit to Scotland last month, the aggregate value of planned investment by overseas companies which we have helped to secure since we set up Locate in Scotland in 1981, now exceeds £1,000 million. This investment is expected to create or safeguard directly some 25,000 jobs and to provide many more opportunities in other enterprises throughout the United Kingdom.

Mr. Hirst: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Is it not a most impressive record on the part of Locate in Scotland in attracting inward investment? Will he pass on to the officials of LIS the congratulations of the House on their continued success and our hopes that they will do still better? How many of these companies have set up marketing and research and development functions in Scotland? Are not these functions fairly critical in guaranteeing a long-term future for the companies that LIS has attracted to Scotland?

Mr. Stewart: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's sentiments on LIS, which I am sure will be widely shared. Locate in Scotland is in the present year on target for investment. Since April some £500 million has gone into Scotland, which will involve new or safeguarded jobs for about 6,000. My hon. Friend makes an important point on research and development and marketing, which are critical functions. One of our great advantages in attracting such activities is the strength of our higher education system.

Mr. Bruce: I echo my appreciation of the success of Locate in Scotland, but will the Minister acknowledge that, with the present review of assisted area status in Scotland about to be published, some non-assisted areas could lose out, especially under section 8 of the Industry Act, which could affect the future performance of LIS? Will the Scottish Office recognise the need to press for more approvals of section 8 applications in non-assisted areas?

Mr. Stewart: I am happy to assure the hon. Gentleman that the White Paper explicitly recognises the importance of regional centres in enabling Scotland, and the United Kingdom as a whole, to complete effectively for internationally mobile projects.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the success of the Locate in Scotland unit is likely steadily to continue, and that there has been a lot of American investment recently, as was shown by W.L. Gore Associates?

Mr. Stewart: I met Mr. Gore during my recent trip to America. I am convinced that the climate is now excellent for further inward investment in Scotland. We have established our reputation as silicon glen. Overseas businessmen have high confidence in the policies of the Government, and were particularly impressed by the decision of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to reduce corporation tax.

Mr. Dewar: Has the review by the Department of Trade and Industry into the future of LIS been completed? If so, will the Minister give us a full statement about the results and about LIS's continuing success? Is he aware that any reduction in the scope and independence of LIS will be unacceptable to the Opposition, however skillfully it may be disguised as integration and co-operation with the Department of Trade and Industry and the Invest in Britain bureau? It is particularly important to get this fact established because of the continuing rumours that at least one of the North American operations of Locate in Scotland is threatened with closure.

Mr. Allan Stewart: I note with interest that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) has refrained from commenting favourably on the inward investment successes to which my hon. Friends have referred. The Government have been considering the future of inward investment promotion for the whole United Kingdom, as was announced a couple of years ago. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that our only concern is to increase the effectiveness of our efforts.

Scottish Trades Union Council

Mr. James Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he will next meet the Scottish Trades Union Congress general council to discuss the economic and industrial situation in Scotland.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. George Younger): I have no immediate plans to meet the general council of the STUC to discuss the economic and industrial situation in Scotland. I meet senior trade union representatives as often as possible. I shall be meeting them next month to discuss local authority expenditure.

Mr. Hamilton: When the Secretary of State next meets the general council of the Scottish Trades Union Congress and tells it about the inward investment successes, will he also remind council members about the 370,000 unemployed? That is the true figure. Will he remind them that one in four in Strathclyde is still unemployed? Will he also tell them whether he agrees with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has stated that the Government can do very little about the economy of the country? If the Secretary of State agrees with that view, will he resign and let someone else do the job?

Mr. Younger: The hon. Gentleman has given me a lot of instructions. I shall, of course, consider them all carefully. I do not consider that it will be necessary either for me to advise the STUC, or for it to advise me, about present unemployment levels in Scotland. We are only too well aware of them.
What my right hon. Friend has been saying so tellingly in recent weeks is true. He says that those in work should think hard about excessive wage claims which may price others out of work.

Mr. Bill Walker: When the STUC makes statements about unemployment, should it not bear in mind the impact of the present coal strike on places such as Ravenscraig? Is it not also true that people are often judged by the friends that they keep? When the STUC next meets the mineworkers' union, should it not remind the union that Colonel Gaddafi is not very well received in other parts of the country?

Mr. Younger: I appreciate my hon. Friend's final remark. Over recent months, unfortunately, certain sections of the trade union movement seem by their actions to have deliberately tried to ensure that people lose their jobs. I hope that common sense will prevail before too long and that those sections will appreciate the considerable success of the Government in bringing new jobs into Scotland.

Mr. Wilson: I noted the Secretary of State's reluctance, in answering the first question, to give any information about the long-term future of Locate in Scotland. Will the Secretary of State come clean on another matter that is causing Scots, and the STUC in particular, much concern — the review of regional grants, and their future? Will the Secretary of State give a copper-bottomed guarantee that Scotland will not lose in any way under the current review?

Mr. Younger: The hon. Gentleman will not expect me to anticipate the results of the review. I can only say that the Government believe very strongly in a strong regional policy, and that I believe that the final decisions will bear that out.

Scottish Council (Development and Industry)

Mr. Kirkwood: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next plans to meet the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) to discuss the Scottish economy.

Mr. Allan Stewart: My right hon. Friend has no specific plans to meet the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) in the near future, although my right hon. Friend and I meet the council from time to time to discuss a wide range of subjects.

Mr. Kirkwood: Following the question asked by the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. Wilson), will the Minister assure us that he will pay close attention to the Scottish Council's view of the current industrial review in relation to the rates applicable to the tiered structure and—most important of all — the automatic grant versus selectivity? Will the Minister also assure us that if he is subject to menacing threats from the Treasury he will consider the possibility of keeping the area cover wide, but going for selective rather than automatic grants?

Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry and I met the

representatives of the Scottish Council on 26 June to discuss their response to the White Paper. The representatives made some of the points to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. We assured them that the points made in their written and oral submissions would be taken into account in deciding the outstanding issues of the review.

Mr. Henderson: Has my hon. Friend observed that many sunrise industries prefer to develop in rural towns than in traditional industrialised areas? Will he ensure that such developments will not be prevented by regional policy?

Mr. Stewart: I note my hon. Friend's point. Rural areas have proved attractive to some companies in the industries to which he referred.

Mr. Ewing: What response has the Minister given to the Scottish Council (Development and Industry) about its view that assistance should not be based entirely on the number of jobs that would be created by investment? If the Government's approach, were the reverse, capital intensive industries such as the petro-chemical industry in my constituency, which needs to create new investment, reinvest and modernise plant, would be seriously at risk.

Mr. Stewart: As I said to the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood), my hon. Friend the Minister of State and I assured the Scottish Council that its views on that matter and others would be taken into account. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the object of the review is to make regional policy more cost-effective in terms of jobs.

Mr. O'Neill: In regard to replacement investment, is the Minister aware that the Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry said that exclusion of replacement investment would save £70 million and that exclusion of non-job-creating modernisation would save £100 million? Of that £170 million, about £50 million could legitimately be expected to come to Scotland. Did he say how much of that money will still come to Scotland after the review? Did he give the Scottish Council any assurances? If not, is it any wonder that the Scottish Council despairs of the Government's attitude to regional policy?

Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend and I assured the Scottish Council that its views would be considered fully. The exclusion of replacement investment is a requirement of membership of the Common Market and brings our system into line with every other European country.

Unemployment

Mr. Millan: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement about Scottish unemployment.

Mr. Younger: There were 15,000 more jobs in Scotland in June 1984 than there were a year previously. I regard this as very encouraging.

Mr. Millan: My question concerned unemployment in Scotland, which is at a record level. The Secretary of State has not bothered to answer it. Is the Secretary of State aware that a Bill that is now completing its stages will reduce regional aid in Scotland by about 30 per cent.? Is he aware that, in view of that, there is widespread opposition in Scotland from the CBI as well as the STUC


to any further reduction in regional aid? If the rates of grant or the areas covered are reduced after the review — there is much speculation about that — the Government will receive the most hostile reception.

Mr. Younger: I note that the right hon. Gentleman went out of his way not to welcome the fact that we have 15,000 more jobs. He might like to note, even if he will not welcome it, that we had 35,000 more service jobs in June 1984 than one year previously. The right hon. Gentleman is wrong to suggest that decisions on regional policy have been finalised. He should know from the White Paper that the Government have clearly stated that they believe in strong and effective regional policy. It is against that background that the right hon. Gentleman should judge the effectiveness of the changes when they are announced.

Mr. Corrie: Is there any likelihood of jobs being created in the west of Scotland thanks to oil exploration? Does my right hon. Friend agree that Ardrossan harbour is an ideal location for a base as there is serious unemployment in that area?

Mr. Younger: I note my hon. Friend's excellent point about Ardrossan harbour, which might well be suitable. Exploration is being conducted in many coastal areas, including the west of Scotland, but so far no large exploitable finds of oil have been made.

Mr. Steel: What percentage of people who left school in Scotland in June went straight into the dole queue, and how many more can be expected to join it after a temporary period on youth training schemes?

Mr. Younger: I am glad to see the right hon. Gentleman here today after fulfilling a different role yesterday. I am sure that it was a happy occasion. As to youth unemployment, all those who leave school this year are guaranteed either a job or a place on the youth training scheme. A large proportion of people who have just completed their year on YTS are getting employment. We hope that that pattern will be repeated this year.

Mr. Forth: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the level of unemployment in the west midlands of England is, regrettably, comparable to that of Scotland? Is he further aware of the resentment in the west midlands at the vast amounts of money given——

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must relate his question to Scotland.

Mr. Forth: I am making a comparison between unemployment in Scotland and in the west midlands. I wish to draw a comparison between the effects of regional policy in Scotland and its effects in the west midlands. I then wish to ask my right hon. Friend to bear in mind the fact that the west midlands expects treatment equal to that afforded to Scotland regarding regional policy. Will he bear that in mind?

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is precisely my point. The Secretary of State cannot answer that question.

Mr. Younger: All Scottish hon. Members will appreciate the feelings of my hon. Friend. I assure him that regional policy has always been a Great Britain policy. It is in the interests of Great Britain as a whole that those areas which require help should receive it.

Dr. Godman: I am sure that the Secretary of State will share my satisfaction at the continuing investment in IBM

and National Semiconductor in my constituency. Is he aware that recently Greenock and Port Glasgow has shown the sharpest increase in unemployment of the whole Strathclyde region? Is not the present figure of male unemployment, which is in excess of 23 per cent., scandalously high?

Mr. Younger: The position in Greenock and Port Glasgow has been causing deep anxiety for a long time. In recent years, the electronics industry has become a larger employer than the older industries that used to be the largest employers. The Government have been pouring money and effort into the area to build a new base for its economy, and have achieved a measure of success.

Mr. Hirst: Does my right hon. Friend find it curious that the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Millan) is so critical about the increase in unemployment when many of its causes derive from the Labour Government of which he was a prominent member? Does he agree that there is genuine anxiety among Conservative Members about unemployment? Will he consider reviewing the policy in the public sector of employing people beyond pensionable age?

Mr. Younger: That point can certainly be considered in a longer term review about such policy. My hon. Friend is right to say that all hon. Members appreciate that, while unemployment is a major problem at present, we have the benefit of the Government's defeat of the main scourge of unemployment, which is, inflation. That is a great success and of permanent benefit to our economy.

Mr. Kennedy: How long does the Secretary of State think it will take for Government policies to be sufficiently successful to replace the jobs lost in the Highlands of Scotland under this Administration through the closure of the Corpach pulpmill and the Invergordon smelter?

Mr. Younger: It is the objective of all those ivolved with development in the Highlands, especially the Highlands and Islands Development Board, which has the largest budget ever, to reverse that trend. I was encouraged to read in the newspapers this morning that the president of the hon. Gentleman's party, Mrs. Shirley Williams, had been in Scotland yesterday and had said what a splendid example Scotland's economic progress was to the rest of Great Britain.

Mr. O'Neill: Does the Secretary of State remember that on 29 November 1983 in the Scottish Grand Committee he said:
at long last Scotland is part of our economic recovery and is about to lead this country out of the recession that has caused so much damage.
[Official Report, Scottish Grand Committee, 29 November 1983; c.783.
Will he reflect on the fact that in September 326,300 people were out of work, which is 13,000 more than the figure for the previous September? While we recognise the achievement of the Locate in Scotland bureau in bringing work to Scotland, we need about 1,500 jobs a month to start to erode the unemployment level. At present the Government are not even keeping unemployment down. Is he not ashamed of the statement that he made to the Scottish Grand Committee?

Mr. Younger: On the contrary, anyone considering the progress of the Scottish economy against the background of the recession through which we have been will see that notable advances have been made in Scotland. The hon.


Gentleman referred to September, and he might wish to note that since 1 September no less than 5,087 new jobs have been announced for Scotland. He might also wish to record that the average number of people being placed in employment from jobcentres is between 15,000 and 20,000 every month.

Urban Aid Programme

Mr. Willie W. Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the results of his talks with voluntary bodies and others on the urban aid programme.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. John MacKay): On 24 August, my right hon. Friend announced that it would be possible to approve new projects to spend in 1985–86. A circular inviting applications, and conveying a statement of policy, will be sent to authorities very soon.

Mr. Hamilton: Is it not the case that the increase proposed by the Government is £500,000, as compared with the current £29 million, without taking account of the inflation expected during that year? Will he confirm that councils will not receive the aid unless and until they provide evidence to the Department that they intend to cut staff numbers?

Mr. MacKay: There should be some scope in 1985–86 for about £5 million of new capital expenditure and £5 million of new current expenditure. The provision of £29 million is at least as good as the outturn achieved last year.

Mr. Craigen: As it created the crisis in confidence in the urban aid programme, by how much has the Scottish Office cleared the existing applications for urban aid in its in-trays? Is it leaving it to the local authorities to do the dirty work in prioritising the approval of applications? How much will the information that came to light in the previous census return influence the distribution of funds to deprived areas?

Mr. MacKay: On the last point, my right hon. Friend's statement of his policy and priorities in this matter makes it clear that projects should be of direct and particular benefit to deprived urban areas. There is no scope to approve new projects for start in this financial year, although extensions to existing projects are being approved where appropriate. As I said, £29 million will be available in the next financial year for projects in this area.

Labour Statistics

Mr. Tom Clarke: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many people were employed in Scotland in non-manual jobs in the public sector at the latest date for which figures are available; and how these figures compare with those for May 1979.

Mr. Younger: There are no comprehensive estimates on this basis. The available estimates are complex and I will arrange for them to be published in the Official Report. They show a reduction of 6·6 per cent. in Civil Service non-industrial staff and increases of 2·5 per cent. in local authority non-manual staff and of 7·5 per cent. in National Health Service staff.

Mr. Clarke: In view of the many jobs that were lost in the private sector because of the large number of

bankruptcies, why do not the Government give the public sector the importance that it deserves? Why are they ashamed about building more homes, hospitals and schools? What happened to the Civil Service jobs that we were promised for Scotland in 1979?

Mr. Younger: The Government have almost fulfilled their undertaking to bring 2,000 Civil Service jobs to the west of Scotland—I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will welcome that as warmly as I do—and the programme is on stream. As to the balance between public and private jobs, the hon. Gentleman must agree that the money to pay for public sector jobs comes from the private sector. If I tried to make up any losses in the private sector by increasing those in the public sector, I would simply put an even heavier burden on the remaining private sector jobs, which would have a disastrous effect on the Scottish economy.

Mr. Michael Forsyth: Does my right hon. Friend agree that those figures give the lie to the views expressed by Opposition Members that there have been cuts in local government and the National Health Service? Instead, there has been expansion, and the bankruptcies to which the hon. Gentleman referred have been caused by those excesses in the public sector.

Mr. Younger: On this occasion I share my hon. Friend's astonishment. We are invited to believe by Opposition Members that virtually all local authority services have been slashed beyond recognition, yet the figures show that there has been an increase in staff of 2·5 per cent. We are also invited to believe that the Health Service has been practically destroyed by the Government, when it is clear from the figures that we are employing 7·5 per cent. more people to run it, most of whom are doctors and nurses.

Mr. Maxton: When will the Secretary of State learn that thousand of jobs in the private sector depend on public sector expenditure?

Mr. Younger: They depend on each other. But my point still stands. If I were to place extra taxation and burdens on the remaining private sector to increase public sector jobs still further, that would be just about the most disastrous thing that I could do to the Scottish economy, apart from the appointment of another Labour Government.

Following is the information:


Full-time Equivalent Employees in Scotland



1979
*1984


Civil Service non-industrial staff at April
52,127
48,670


Local Authority non-manual staff at June
148,800
152,500


National Health Service: all staff at March
114,473
123,028


* Provisional.

Commercial and Industrial Investment

Mr. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement about commercial and industrial investment in Scotland since June.

Mr. Allan Stewart: In the period 1 June to 30 September 1984, 92 offers of selective financial assistance were made under the Industrial Development Act 1982, with a value of £14·3 million. Total project investment associated with these offers was £197 million. Since June


a number of North sea oil-related contracts have been announced, and over the past year Scotland has been particularly successful in attracting electronics industry investment.

Mr. Henderson: Is my hon. Friend aware that the figures will be encouraging? Will he say something more about his impressions of, and the possible benefits which may flow from, his visit to the United States during the recess? What steps have been taken to encourage existing Scottish firms to supply goods and services, particularly components, to the companies which are now settling in Scotland from elsewhere?

Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend is right. Inward investment means opportunities for equipment suppliers from domestic industry. Building up the whole electronic sector is an essential part of our strategy and of the SDA's detailed work on the Scottish economy.
I assure my hon. Friend that my trip to the United States proved encouraging in relation to prospects for further inward investment. As he knows, I am fairly cautious by nature in making forecasts, but I certainly hope that as a result of the detailed talks that I had with a number of companies, projects involving 1,000 new jobs will be announced in the next two or three months.

Mr. Buchan: Will the Minister explain why, each time he makes an optimistic forecast about industrial or commercial prospects for Scotland, the unemployment figures increase?

Mr. Stewart: My forecasts are always cautious and I am not aware of having made any forecast that was not subsequently fulfilled. As the hon. Gentleman is very well aware, and as my right hon. Friend has told the House, the total number of jobs in Scotland is increasing.

Mr. Home Robertson: Has the Minister noted that most Scottish health boards do not want private commercial investment in their catering and cleaning services within the integrated NHS? Will he now accept that the intrusion of "fast-food, fast-buck" merchants into the NHS is entirely undesirable, and will he therefore tear up the Scottish Office circular on this subject?

Mr. Stewart: I am not clear about the precise relevance of the hon. Gentleman's point in relation to investment, but as my hon. Friends will be aware, he is talking rubbish.

Mr. Bill Walker: Does my hon. Friend agree that the disappearance of jobs has been historically due to the problems of the past and that the jobs that are now coming in are jobs for the future? Tomorrow in Aberdeen there will be an announcement about some jobs that are coming from inward investment. In fact, a Scot is organising it.

Mr. Stewart: The House will be delighted to hear what my hon. Friend has said. It is essential for the Scottish economy to be competitive and to develop the industries that will compete, prosper and expand in the future. That is what our economic strategy is all about.

Convention of Scottish Local Authorities

Mr. Craigen: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he will be meeting representatives of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to discuss housing and rating matters in Scotland.

Mr. Younger: My hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for home affairs and the environment in Scotland met representatives of the convention on 8 and 29 October to discuss these matters and further meetings will be held at the beginning of December.

Mr. Craigen: I understand that the provisional revaluation assessments was one of the matters discussed with COSLA. Will the Secretary of State assure Scotland's ratepayers that there is no way in which the Government will approve a shift of 16 per cent. in the burden of rates towards domestic ratepayers without in any way compensating householders through additional domestic relief which is not at the expense of either the needs or the resources elements of the rate support grant?

Mr. Younger: That matter was raised at the most recent meeting that my hon. Friend has with COSLA. As the hon. Gentleman will know, that is part of the normal procedure for a revaluation. We have not yet had the final figures from the assessors as to what is likely to happen. When I have those figures I shall consider carefully whether there are any inequalities that need to be put right, and, if so, to what extent I can do anything about them.

Mr. Wilson: Is not the Secretary of State disguising a fact that is already known, that on current trends there is likely to be the swing that has been mentioned? Does he regret that in the past four or five years he did not bring in the programme of rates reform which he urged in the 1979 Conservative manifesto?

Mr. Younger: If the hon. Gentleman means that the present rating system should be altered in some way I have no doubt that he will have ways to put that. This is only concerned with the ways in which the current revaluation system works and there is nothing new or unusual about that. When one sees the spendthrift actions of some councils it makes one think how happy we would we all be if there were some other form of taxation for them to pile on to us at this time.

Mr. Michael Forsyth: Does my right hon. Friend accept that there will be some disappointment that there is not a willingness to discuss an alternative to the rating system? Will he take the opportunity of the meeting to discuss whether it might be possible to amend the guidelines in such a way that they do not offer an advantage to the high spenders at the expense of the low-spending, often Conservative-controlled authorities in Scotland?

Mr. Younger: I appreciate my hon. Friend's last point. As he will know, the new system for splitting up the general abatement is now much fairer—in fact, almost completely fair—to authorities. That goes a long way to meet the point that my hon. Friend made.

Mr. Lambie: Why is the right hon. Gentleman going ahead with another revaluation in Scotland when the previous revaluation in England and Wales took place in 1973 and when the Government have postponed any further revaluation there? In view of the rumours, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Craigen) said, of increases of about 16 per cent. facing Scottish domestic ratepayers as a result of the next revaluation, is it not about time that the Government considered postponing the 1985 revaluation and bringing us into line with England and Wales?

Mr. Younger: The objective of a revaluation is a narrow one, and that is to re-establish the relative positions of various properties and types of property within the rating system to try to ensure that, as near as possible, they are assessed fairly in relation to each other. To that extent, to put off the revaluation would be to perpetuate the unfairnesses to some Scottish ratepayers in some categories. That is why it is much fairer to all concerned to go ahead with the new valuation.

Coal Industry Dispute

Mr. Douglas: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the impact of the coal industry dispute on the Scottish economy.

Mr. Allan Stewart: This tragic and unnecessary dispute has had no general effect on Scottish manufacturing industry, where a recovery in output is well under way. I understand that some difficulties have been caused for firms which are specialist suppliers to the mining industry. However, the greatest damage has been the extreme hardship caused to families of striking miners.

Mr. Douglas: Will the Minister prevail on his right hon. Friend, in developing the forensic skills that he has as a member of the Star Chamber, to give us an assurance that nowhere in the Coal Board is there a document relating to Scotland similar to that circulating in relation to the north-east of England, which decimates the coal industry there? Can we have an assurance that we shall have a continuance of high capacity and a high number of pits in operation in Scotland? Given the hon. Gentleman's economic knowledge, would he not say that the vacillations and incompetence of Mr. MacGregor must have an impact on the morale of Scottish management? No manager worth his salt in Scotland could say that he could do a worse job that this incompetent geriatric, who should be repatriated.

Mr. Stewart: As the hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well in his heart of hearts, there is not a shred of industrial justification for the strike. As he also knows, there is a perfectly reasonable basis for a settlement, and that is the agreement reached with NACODS. The hon. Gentleman should be using his influence in the Labour movement to ensure that the NUM faces reality.

Mr. Andy Stewart: Is my hon. Friend aware that more Scottish miners are working in Nottinghamshire than in the whole of the Scottish coalfields? Is it not the case that they are working as a result of a ballot?

Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend, and fellow clansman, is absolutely right. If the Scottish miners had held a ballot they, too, would be working. They have been picketed out. Opposition Members know that it is only violence and intimidation that is preventing many more Scottish miners from working.

Mr. Eadie: Surely on this day of all days we are entitled to hear fewer echoes of Government propaganda and more of the language of conciliation rather than confrontation. Is the Minister aware that there has been an impact on Scottish industry, with not one new pit being sunk in Scotland since the Government took office? Is he further aware that 81 per cent. of investment in the coal industry goes to Yorkshire, the Midlands and Nottinghamshire, leaving only 19 per cent. for South

Wales, Durham and Cumberland? Can the hon. Gentleman justify that as a fair share of investment for the coal industry in Scotland?

Mr. Stewart: The Government have an outstanding record of investment in the coal industry, standing at more than £2 million a day. The hon. Gentleman is widely respected and he should use his considerable influence to get the NUM to face reality.

Mr. Corrie: Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating those at the Hunterston nuclear power station on having produced power at record levels to maintain industry in Scotland during the past eight months of dispute?

Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend makes a sensible point. The Scottish electricity boards have a wide range of fuel sources, such as nuclear, coal, oil, gas and water. I can assure the House that there is no threat to electricity supplies in Scotland.

Mr. Ron Brown: Does not the Minister realise that the NUM will not be smashed, unlike 1926? In recognising that fact, is it not important for the Government to empower Ian MacGregor to negotiate a just settlement of the long-running dispute?

Mr. Stewart: The hon. Gentleman is well acquainted with the regime that has been involved recently in our mining industry. It is astonishing that Opposition Members are still not prepared to say that there should have been a ballot of miners in both Scotland and elsewhere. The hon. Gentleman knows that violence and intimidation are preventing many more Scottish miners from joining those already working, whose number increases every day.

Mr. Henderson: Does my hon. Friend agree that the mining dispute has done grievous damage to the Scottish economy, which is all the more galling because these are self-inflicted wounds? Has not the dispute done damage also to Scotland's reputation in industrial relations, which is so important for inward investment? Has not an unfair view been taken abroad of Scottish industrial relations, which the dispute now underpins? Has he seen the catalogue of violence during the dispute in which more than 250 miners and almost 800 police officers have been injured on picket lines?

Mr. Stewart: Indeed. I think that everyone is familiar with the catalogue of violence, which should be deplored by Members of all political persuasions. It is to their credit that one or two Labour Members have been firm in their attacks on such violence. As for inward investment and industrial relations, I believe that those abroad see the miners' dispute as an isolated matter. The representatives of the American companies with whom I have spoken are high in their praise of their Scottish work forces' productivity and flexibility and the Scottish work ethic.

Mr. McKelvey: Before the Minister announces his resignation, which is long overdue, will he confirm or deny that the Killoch and Barony coalfields in Ayrshire were on the hit list and due to close within five years? It could not be simpler than that.

Mr. Stewart: I shall not comment on matters that are for the management of the National Coal Board. The hon. Gentleman must know of the damage that is being caused by the strike to his constituents. He should be using his


influence to try to persuade them to get the National Union of Mineworkers to face reality and accept the reasonable settlement to which NACODS is already a party.

Mr. Dewar: Will the Minister accept that another barrier to the settlement that we all want of the miners' strike is the distrust that has understandably arisen from the National Coal Board's handling of the dispute? May I bring the Minister back to the supplementary question that was asked originally? He will be aware that a document has been made public which shows that the NCB has plans within the next two or three years to close six or seven pits in the nort-east of England, which will reduce the number of pits in that area to a mere handful by the middle of the 1990s. Will he tell us whether there is a similar document in existence that applies to Scotland? If he does not know, will he make immediate inquiries with the NCB to establish exactly what is going on and make the earliest possible statement to the House on the information that he finds?

Mr. Stewart: I have already said that I cannot comment on matters that are the responsibility of the NCB management in Scotland. The hon. Gentleman should be asking for a ballot from the Opposition Dispatch Box. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer".] He should be using his influence with the NUM to try to get a settlement.

Capital Investment

Mr. Bruce: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has received on the level of capital investment by the public sector in Scotland.

Mr. Allan Stewart: My right hon. Friend has received a number of representations from hon. Members and from other individuals and organisations about the level of public sector capital investment, which has borne up well despite the overriding need to restrain public expenditure.

Mr. Bruce: Will the Minister acknowledge, as the CBI in Scotland has done, that public expenditure and public investment are the quickest and most effective ways of dealing with unemployment? There are 75,000 unemployed construction workers in Scotland and an increase in public investment in Scotland would be the most important act that the Government could take to reduce dole queues.

Mr. Stewart: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that capital spending in Scotland is at a high level. It is running at about £1,500 million in the current year. However, we need to restrain the total of public expenditure. Increased spending means increased borrowing, higher inflation and higher levels of unemployment in the long run.

Mingary-Tobermory Ferry

Mr. Johnston: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will make a statement about the operation of the Mingary-Tobermory ferry.

Mr. John MacKay: Caledonian MacBrayne Ltd. operates this service as an approved service for which my right hon. Friend pays revenue subsidy. The company has recently sought his agreement to its initiating procedures to withdraw the service. He is considering the matter.

Mr. Johnston: Is the Minister aware that that is a highly unsatisfactory answer? Does he agree that the

relatively isolated community in western Ardnamurchan is highly dependent on the service and has had, from the vessel provided by Caledonian MacBrayne Ltd. an unsatisfactory and probably unsafe service for some time? Will he take these matters very much into consideration?

Mr. MacKay: As the hon. Gentleman knows, if the proposal for withdrawal is to be taken further, there will be a full opportunity for the communities concerned to present their case to the Scottish transport users' consultative committee. I am sure that all those points will be raised at that committee meeting, if the matter goes to that stage.

Maritime Industries

Dr. Godman: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the employment prospects for Scotland's maritime industries, following the Government's recent announcement on the future of British Shipbuilders.

Mr. Allan Stewart: Prospects in Scotland are good provided the yards achieve levels of performance and efficiency which enable them to compete successfully in domestic and international markets.

Dr. Godman: Leaving aside for the moment the inexplicable—some would say absurd—decision of the MOD to award the contracts to refit HMS Otter to a yard that has little or no experience of refitting, what is the likelihood in the near future of an order being placed with a Scottish yard for a fisheries protection vessel?

Mr. Stewart: The contract for that refit was awarded on a strictly commercial basis and in line with the Government's well-publicised intention to bring competition into warship refitting. There will be a full opportunity for the yards about which the hon. Gentleman is specially concerned to tender and compete for any new orders.

Convention of Scottish Local Authorities

Mr. Steel: asked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he next intends to meet the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to discuss expenditure guidelines and future local authority spending.

Mr. Younger: I shall meet the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on 7 December for one of my regular meetings with it to discuss local authority expenditure.

Mr. Steel: Before the meeting, when the representatives of the convention complain to the Secretary of State about the effect that public guidelines are having on the future of Scottish education, will he accept the need for an independent review of the teaching profession, in view of the way in which it has fallen far behind in the national wages structure?

Mr. Younger: I have now had meetings with the teachers' representatives and the employers' representatives, and I am considering what they said to me at those meetings.

Oral Answers to Questions — SOLICITOR-GENERAL FOR SCOTLAND

Industrial Disputes (Breaches of the Peace)

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: asked the Solicitor-General for Scotland how many prosecutions


have been made in the current year arising out of assaults or breaches of the peace committed during the course of industrial disputes.

Mr. Hirst: asked the Solicitor-General for Scotland how many people have now been reported to procurators fiscal in connection with incidents arising from the miners' strike; how many have been charged with an offence; how many of those cases have been decided by the courts and how many remain to be so decided; and how many of those reported to procurators fiscal have a permanent address outside Scotland.

Mr. Willie W. Hamilton: asked the Solicitor-General for Scotland what is the latest figure for the number arrested as a result of the miners' strike; how many have been charged; how many have been tried and convicted; and how many currently await trial.

The Solicitor-General for Scotland (Mr. Peter Fraser): As of 26 October 1984, 1,320 persons have been arrested and charged with offences arising out of the miners' strike. To date, procurators fiscal have taken proceedings against 816 persons of whom 160 have been convicted and 48 acquitted by the courts. In 608 cases the accused has either pleaded not guilty and a trial diet has been fixed or the accused has still to appear in court to answer to a citation. I intend to publish more detailed information in the Official Report giving details of the nature of the charges and the domicile of the accused.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Is it not a fact that the vast majority of convictions have been for specific offences under the laws of Scotland, which have been in existence for a great many years?

The Solicitor-General for Scotland: The more detailed information, which I have said that I shall publish in the Official Report, shows that the vast majority of charges were for breaches of the peace or arose in relation to obstruction of the police under section 41 of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967.

Mr. Hirst: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for his reply. Will he confirm that a not insignificant number of people who have been charged with offences arising out of violence on the picket line have permanent addresses outside Scotland? Does my hon. and learned Friend agree with me that that type of behaviour has no place in industrial relations in Scotland? Will he say that it is deplorable that the NUM has had to ship in to Scotland marauding thugs to sustain its strike in the Scottish coalfields?

The Solicitor-General for Scotland: The best figures that I can give to my hon. Friend are that of the 1,300 people who have been charged, 72 have domiciles of citation out of Scotland. Those are definite figures, but my information is that the number may be higher. I do not anticipate that it would be much more. That is, nevertheless, a significant number of those who have been charged and are to be brought before the courts.

Mr. Willie W. Hamilton: Since this strike is likely to continue for some time, what provision is the Scottish Office making to bring more expeditiously to court the people who have been charged and are awaiting trial? How many of those charged were miners before the strike and how many were not?

The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I do not have a precise answer on the hon. Gentleman's last point, but I know that a number of the people charged were certainly not employed as miners before the strike began. If the hon. Gentleman wishes me to obtain the information, I shall do what I can. Although we are doing what we can to ensure that these cases are brought to court as quickly as possible, in a number of cases people have not been brought to court because of reasons advanced by the defence. Unfortunately, there has been some delay to accommodate those people and to ensure that opportunities for fair trial are given. Those of us involved in prosecutions certainly do not want a delay.

Mr. Dewar: Will the Solicitor-General confirm that he accepts that offences that arise from the picket line should be dealt with on conviction on the basis of the seriousness of the offence and the personal circumstances of the accused? I raise that matter because there have been occasions when speeches, particularly by the Home Secretary, have suggested that he sees the courts in some way an extension of the Government's political campaign against the miners. Will the Solicitor-General study the administration of legal aid, because evidence is coming from solicitors that there are wide differences of approach within sheriffdoms in Scotland on the granting of legal aid for picket line offences? Does he accept that if that is proved it would be alarming? Does he accept that the legal aid system should be impartial and operate in exactly the same way in all sheriffdoms and in all parts of the country?

The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I would have to accept that there are discrepancies in the way that legal aid is granted in the sheriff courts. It is something that I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is studying at the moment. I would not accept that those discrepancies arise out of a view that the courts take about the miners' strike. Discrepancies exist, but they are on a more general basis. I can only repeat that where people have been charged in Scotland with offences arising out of the miners' strike, the vast majority of the offences are for breaches of the peace and obstructing the police. In those circumstances, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that the sherriffs of Scotland will deal with them on the basis of the cases that come before them, the evidence, the severity of the charge and the circumstances of those individuals accused who are eventually convicted.

Following is the information:


Picket arrests: 14 March–26 October 1984



Numbers


Persons charged with offences and reported to the procurator fiscal
*1,228


Persons against whom proceedings taken
†816


Persons convicted
160


Persons acquitted
‡48


Persons against whom proceedings outstanding
║608


Accused with a domicile of citation outwith Scotland
¶72


Offences with which offenders charged:


Breach of the Peace
727


Vandalism
25


Assault
6


Theft
1


Wilful Fireraising
2


Reckless Conduct
1


Contravention of:


S.41, Police (Scotland) Act 1967
600

Numbers


S.3, Bail etc. (Scotland) Act 1980
37


S.1, Prevention of Crime Act 1953
10


S.24(1), Roads (Scotland) Act 1970
11


S.7, Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act 1875
110


* This figure is less than the total provided by chief constables for the number of persons arrested during the present dispute. Not all of those arrested will have been reported to procurators fiscal. In addition, a person arrested by the police on more than one occasion will appear more than once in the chief constable's total.


† Including both solemn and summary proceedings. In a number of other cases (109) a decision has still to be taken on whether proceedings should be instituted.


‡ This figure encompasses cases where the accused was acquitted after trial and those cases where the prosecution accepted a plea of not guilty after proceedings had been commenced or deserted the proceedings.


║ Including outstanding trial diets and those cases where the accused has still to appear in court to answer a citation.


¶ This figure is incomplete as figures were not available for all districts.

Travelling People

Mr. Henderson: asked the Solicitor-General for Scotland if prosecution practice in relation to travelling people is the same as for any other citizens, where there have been breaches of criminal law, local byelaws or planning matters.

The Solicitor-General for Scotland: The toleration policy relates only to unauthorised encampments as such. It does not relate to other breaches of the law. Where there are such complaints these will be dealt with by the police and procurators fiscal in the normal way.

Mr. Henderson: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that some people in my constituency will find that answer difficult to believe because they perceive that travelling people are allowed, apparently, to do things which no other people would be allowed to do, sometimes on encampments and sometimes not. Will my hon. and learned Friend agree to discuss with his right hon. Friend what action would be appropriate between the Crown Office and the Scottish Office to resolve some of the difficulties with whch we are faced in north-east Fife, particularly Cupar?

The Solicitor-General for Scotland: If I may disabuse my hon. Friend's constituents of their misapprehension, no toleration policy extends to the travelling people other

than in relation to unauthorised encampments. I have to say to his constituents and the travelling people that if they think that they would enjoy greater leeway in the commission of offences unrelated to encampments they should carefully consider the position, otherwise they will find themselves prosecuted in court.

Mr. McKelvey: asked the Solicitor-General for Scotland if he will make a further statement on the policy of non-harassment of travelling people.

The Solicitor-General for Scotland: The Scottish Home and Health Department will shortly be circulating revised guidelines to local authorities following the policy initiative announced by my hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for home affairs and the environment at the Scottish Office. Under the revised policy, non-harassment will be directly linked to progress in the provision of pitches for travelling people with targets fixed at district levels. In future where these are met, my noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate agrees that the policy of toleration should no longer apply. I should also make it clear that the policy of non-harassment does not apply to larger random encampments such as those experienced at Kilmarnock and elsewhere this summer. Encampments of large groups of caravans moving outwith established travellers' patterns will not be tolerated, whether or not pitch targets have been met.

Mr. McKelvey: What a splendid answer. I wonder whether the hon. and learned Gentleman would consider and perhaps clarify matters. If, for instance, Kilmarnock and Loudoun district identify a proper site which exceeds the criteria laid down by the Scottish Office and apply for a grant, at the moment of application will it be free from the obligation to operate a policy of non-harassment?

The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I am grateful but surprised by the hon. Gentleman's approval of the answer that I gave. I believe that the steps that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is taking will be warmly welcomed by district authorities throughout Scotland. I confirm that once the pitch targets have been announced and are known, and once those targets have been met in districts and areas, the toleration policy in relation to unlawful encampment will no longer continue. I believe, and I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree, that that will go a long way to alleviate local anxiety about this difficult and ong standing problem.

Mrs. Indira Gandhi

The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): As the House will be aware, Mrs. Gandhi was assassinated in Delhi today. I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members in all parts of the House will be equally appalled at that tragic news. I am sure, too, that the whole House will wish to join in expressing to Mrs. Gandhi's family, and to the Government and people of India, our profound grief and sympathy.
This despicable act has robbed India of a great and courageous leader. Daughter of Pandit Nehru, one of the pioneers of India's independence, she led her country for a total of 16 years as Prime Minister, a period which saw India's emergence as an industrial power as well as a major influence in world affairs. Her death has also robbed the Commonwealth of a statesman of outstanding stature and experience.
Mrs. Gandhi chaired the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, in November last year, with dignity, authority and charm. We shall all feel the loss of her wise counsel and her deep humanity, the more so because we knew her not only as a statesman but as a friend of this country.
I understand, although it is not yet confirmed officially, that Mrs. Gandhi's son, Rajiv Gandhi, whom we know well and for whom we have both affection and respect, has been sworn in as the new Indian Prime Minister. We wish him well at this difficult hour in his country's history.
Only a few days ago, Mrs. Gandhi sent me a message in which she said:
All terrorism and violence are condemnable and contemptible".
The murder of a democratic leader is an attack on democracy itself. We utterly condemn this savage and treacherous crime. Let there be no doubt that acts of terrorism will only strenghten the resolve of free peoples that those who resort to violence shall not prevail.

Mr. Neil Kinnock: May I first associate all of us on this side of the House with the expressions of sympathy offered by the Prime Minister to the family of Mrs. Gandhi, and offer good wishes to the new Prime Minister of India.
We mourn with the people of India the tragic and violent death of Mrs. Indira Gandhi. She was a woman of immense stature whose life was full of turmoil, challenge and great achievement. From the age of 12, when she joined the non-co-operation movement, her whole life was given to securing the emancipation of her country, first in the struggle for independence and then in the even more monumental task of economic and political development.
Mrs. Gandhi knew, in the words of her friend, Aneurin Bevan, that political liberty is the by-product of economic sufficiency. In that knowledge she fought a lifelong contest against poverty and against war, the bringer of poverty.
For nearly 20 years, for half the life of independent India, Indira Gandhi was the most important figure in that country. Throughout that time the principles that guided her were devotion to the maintenance of parliamentary democracy and determination to produce tolerance and common purpose out of the diversity and distinctiveness of the peoples of India.
India and Britain are linked by centuries of history, by family, by community and by the ties of the Commonwealth, in which Indira Ghandi was an inspiring leader. We cherish all those relationships, and because of that we grieve today for the death of a fellow democrat, and we grieve for the death of a friend.
Mrs. Gandhi was a woman of greatness and vitality. Her attention to the dominant issues of our time went far beyond the boundaries of her beloved India. She was a cofounder of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries and a wise and courageous advocate of political dialogue between North and South, East and West. She played a vital role in resisting the proliferation of nuclear weapon states. She was tireless in her argument for reform of the world's financial and trading systems. She was a fierce opponent of racism and sectarianism of every sort and a resilient promoter of racial harmony in every country, including our own.
In all nations and in every age, there is a chasm between the ideals of peace and harmony and the fulfilment of those ideals. Indira Gandhi spent her years trying to bridge that chasm with a determination that was at times almost superhuman. She brought intellect and imagination to bear on every task, and in defeat or victory, failure or triumph, she had a compelling dignity that must be a model for all who would seek to lead.
There will be many tributes to Indira Gandhi in great Parliaments like this and in other places throughout the world wherever freedom from want and freedom from oppression are valued. But we can best mark her memory by seeing that in our time her campaigns to achieve those objectives of freedom are fulfilled.
Today, another democrat was brutally murdered. That shall not wound democracy. Its strength overwhelms violence; its appeal ignores boundaries on maps or in the minds of people around the world. With Mahatma Gandhi we say:
I do not want to shut my home to be walled in on all sides, nor my windows to be shut. I want the culture of all lands to blow about my house as freely as possible, but I refuse to be blown off my feet by any of them.
Nothing shall blow democracy off its feet.

Mr. David Steel (Tweedale, Ettrick and Lauderdale): My hon. Friends and I wish to be associated with the expressions of sympathy to Mrs. Gandhi's family, the Government and people of India. Does the Prime Minister agree that the terrible murder of Mrs. Gandhi illustrates again how violence breeds violence and that the greatest challenge facing leaders in our democratic societies is how to encourage their peoples to reconcile conflicts within those countries by peaceful means? Does the right hon. Lady recognise that we wish to pay tribute to Mrs. Gandhi's remarkable leadership, inside and outside the Commonwealth, of the developing countries in their efforts to secure a more just share of world resources, which was appreciated round the world?

Mr. Mark Carlisle: As treasurer of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the chairman of which is Dr. Jakhar, Speaker of the Lok Sabha of India, and on behalf of Members of Parliament of all creeds, races and political parties throughout the Commonwealth, I should like to express what I believe would be their feelings of shock and horror at this outrage, their distress at the enormous loss that it has meant to the Commonwealth as a whole, and their sympathy to the members of Mrs. Gandhi's family.

Dr. David Owen: We, like all others, grieve for India and for the family of Indira Gandhi. We should remember that she probably lost her life in defending the unity of her country, that most precious asset, with its democracy. We should also remember that perhaps her greatest legacy is that she hands to her son a united and democratic country. A country that was able to sustain within months of independence the tragic loss of Mahatma Gandhi is strong enough to sustain even this loss.

Mr. James Molyneaux: I wish to associate with what has been said the people of Northern Ireland, who themselves have experienced terrorism, as indeed has the Prime Minister. We share the Prime Minister's determination that violence must never be permitted to attain its objectives.

Sir Dudley Smith: As Member of Parliament for a constituency with one of the largest Sikh populations in the country, although many of them disagree with some of the policies of the Indian Government, I am sure that they condemn what has happened today. Does my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister agree that violence of this kind must always be rejected wherever it occurs, whether in New Delhi or in Brighton, because in the end, whatever our colour, it diminishes us all?

Mr. Laurie Pavitt: As a former secretary and president of the Endo-British Group, you, Mr. Speaker, will be aware of the deep concern and continuous interest and affection in which Back Benchers of both Houses of Parliament hold the great continent of India.
I thank the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary for their speedy visit to India House this morning. I know that the high commissioner greatly appreciated it.
As the House is to be prorogued today, Back Benchers will have little time to sign the book that is now open. With permission, therefore, the letter being sent by the officers of the Indo-British Group is available in both Whips' Offices for signature by Members of all parties so that the prorogation difficulty can be overcome.
Those of us who had the privilege of meeting and listening to the late Indira Gandhi were well aware that so often the great people of India, despite their great responsibilities, have an inner calm and peace. It is thus excessively sad that such a person should be mown down in violence.

Several Hon. Members: rose——

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sure that the whole House, including many hon. Members—I am one—who have sizeable Asian communities in their constituencies, wish to echo the tributes, but because it would be difficult to call all those wishing to speak I think that we should now move on.

Secretary of State for Energy

Mr. Dennis Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Have you had any indication from the Secretary of State for Energy regarding last night's important announcement that a hit list is available? You will have heard several Ministers, including the Prime Minister, telling the House that no such list exists. We now know that it does. I therefore ask whether, even at this late stage, you feel it necessary to call on the Ministers responsible to explain why throughout the entire miners' dispute they have insisted that there is no such list when at the time of the ACAS talks we know that such a list exists for the north-east of England and for Scotland. I believe that it is incumbent upon you to see that one of those Ministers comes to the Dispatch Box to explain why they have been telling untruths to the nation.

Mr. Speaker: I have had no such request, and I am not responsible for statements that may be made.

Students Charter

Mrs. Edwina Currie: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make membership of and subscription to the National Union of Students voluntary for all students in places of further and higher education; and for connected purposes.
First, I should explain the relationship between student unions in this country and the National Union of Students. In the United Kingdom today there are 44 universities, 31 polytechnics and 576 colleges of further education. In each university and polytechnic and in most colleges of further education there is a students' union of which membership is compulsory for any student intended to study at that institution. That is laid down by law in the statutes or Orders in Council establishing those institutions. Student union membership is thus a closed shop, outdated and iniquitous. Students who do not wish to join their union or the National Union of Students and who do not wish to pay the union fee can be expelled from their college and their course terminated.
Until 1980, student unions were financed by students paying approximately £40 a year to the student union from their grants. As membership was compulsory, a Department of Education and Science circular instructed local authorities to pay the fee directly to the institution, which would then pass the money to the student union. Therefore, the money never touched the students' bank accounts, and this is one reason why the system has endured for so long. The amount of money that is involved is substantial. Student unions receive well over £20 million of public money over the year.
A change in the system was introduced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warrington, South (Mr. Carlisle). In February 1980, it was announced that the money for the student unions was to come out of the institution's recurring funds. In other words, the money now comes from the University Grants Committee and not from the local authorities. This means that student unions have to negotiate their money directly from the university or college authorities, in competition with academic departments, libraries, swimming pools and the like. At least now the university authorities have a direct interest in the amount of money that the union claims, and it is said that sometimes they hang on to it instead of handing it over.
For the individual student, all this makes no difference, as he still has no say in whether he joins the student union or not, and he has no control over the money being spent on his behalf by the UGC. Many student unions do an excellent job, and much of the work of the NUS is commendable.
Students should join their union and take part in its activities. If the moderates do not like the leadership or the policies of their union, they have only themselves to blame. If they fail to take part, they cannot expect to like the results. However, they cannot vote with their feet.
The NUS has two groups of membership. There is individual membership, or the much more common block membership of all the members of an individual student union to the NUS. Therefore, if the student union decides to affiliate with the NUS, all members of the student union become members of the NUS. That is how the NUS achieves its claim of representing 1·2 million students.

Some 40 universities and 31 polytechnics and a large number of colleges have unions that belong to the NUS, but the universities of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt and Dundee, and King's college, London, and Imperial college, London, have all, at one time or another, decided to disaffiliate from the NUS, as a protest at what they regarded as its extreme nature. However, one of the major factors causing disaffiliation from the NUS is the cost of membership, which comes out of the public purse to a total of over £1 million a year. Thus, not only are students compulsory members of their university or college student union but, by virtue of the fact that most unions belong to the NUS, they are also compulsory members of the NUS.
I make no comment about what the NUS and some of the student unions get up to. They have been challenged in the courts and by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General in his capacity as overseer of charitable trusts, and that is the way that some of the more dubious activities of these organisations can be tackled. My concern is to end the closed shop and thus to re-establish the principle that a student may join a union if he wishes to, but if he does not choose to be does not have to.
There has been much discussion about the method by which voluntary membership can be achieved. In Australia, major legislation was passed in 1978 and 1981, but it is all too easy to create complex legislation and then to find, as the Australians did, that one does not achieve one's objective. The most simple way, and the purpose of the Bill, would be to require the students' written consent for money paid over on his behalf by a college or university to a student union and thence to the NUS. That consent should be administered by the college or university; it must be renewed every year, and thus the student union membership and membership of the NUS would become voluntary.
This system could apply to all students, including those not on a grant, to full-time, part-time and sandwich course students and could be extended to all payments to a student union for whatever purpose. If the student did not wish to belong to the student union, he would not have to, and if he did not want to belong to the NUS, even if his student union wished to, he would not have to belong. I commend this system to the House as simple, workable and equitable.
We are talking about both principle and practice. In principle, it is wrong that anyone should be made to join a students' union or the NUS. In a free society, that should be a matter of choice. In practice, unions which do not have a closed shop enforceable by law will have to go out and recruit members. They will have to persuade people to join. Such unions are much more likely to be responsive to what the students want, and accountability to those students will become a reality. If the students want politics, so be it. I think that they are more likely to want a service for the students, leaving politics to individual choice and action. Anyone who wishes to maintain the present system needs to prove why it is both necessary and desirable for the iniquitous practice of public funds financing compulsory membership of the NUS to continue. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mrs. Edwina Currie, Mr. Michael Knowles, Mr. Peter Bruinvels, Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo, Mr. Alistair Burt, Mr. David


Evennett, Mr. Jeremy Hanley, Mr. Sydney Chapman, Mr. David Amess, Mr. Ken Hargreaves and Mr. Robert B. Jones.

Mr. Speaker: Second Reading what day?

Mrs. Currie: Tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker: That would be a bit difficult. Today?

Mr. Jack Straw: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As you have just said, it would be difficult to have the Second Reading tomorrow. In case members of the public may be misled by this mischievous publicity stunt—which, like all the hon. Lady's other stunts, has backfired—would you confirm that, if the Bill were to progress, it would have to go through Second Reading, Committee stage, Report stage, Third Reading and all the procedures in the other place in five hours, and that in practice the Bill stands no chance of reaching the statute book?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman's point of order gives me an opportunity to correct something which I inadvertently found myself saying. Of course, the hon. Lady was correct in saying that she wished the Second Reading to be tomorrow.
As to what the hon. Gentleman has said, I believe that it is fairly common knowledge.

STUDENTS CHARTER

Mrs. Edwina Currie accordingly presented a Bill to make membership of and subscription to the National Union of Students voluntary for all students in places of further and higher education; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tommorrow and to be printed. [Bill 235.]

Statutory Instruments, &c.

Mr. Speaker: With the leave of the House, I propose to put together the Questions on the two motions to approve statutory instruments.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 79(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.)

INCOME TAX

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (China) Order 1984 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 22nd October.

That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Air Transport Profits) (Kuwait) Order 1984 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 22nd October.—[Mr. Lang.]

Question agreed to

Addresses to be presented to Her Majesty by such Members of this House as are of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council or of Her Majesty's Household.

Northern Ireland (General Consumer Council)

The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Dr. Rhodes Boyson): I beg to move,
That the draft General Consumer Council (Northern Ireland) Order 1984, which was laid before this House on 22nd October, be approved.
It seems to be customary for me to rise just before the House begins any form of recess. I remember that just before the House rose for the summer recess I was kept here by a Scottish hon. Member. I promised to do what I could for him but, having returned to the House in another capacity, I have passed that responsibility on. The House begins another temporary recess tomorrow, and I have come to the Dispatch Box for the first time with my new responsibilities.
The order is the outcome of long and sometimes difficult consultations and deliberations. It is based on the recommendations of an independent advisory group of experts on consumer protection which have received widespread support from the Northern Ireland Assembly and from consumer interests in the Province. My predecessor also consulted representatives and Northern Ireland hon. Members before the order was drawn up.
The order has a long history. A proposal for a draft general consumer council order was first published on 27 September 1982 and was referred to the Northern Ireland Assembly and to local consumer interests, but misgivings were expressed in three main areas. The first was that electricity consumers would in future have a less effective watchdog, particularly in dealing with individual complaints. The second was that the suggested budget of about £118,000 then available to the existing bodies, which it was proposed to amalgamate, would be insufficient for the new body to carry out its functions properly and amounted to less favourable financial treatment for Northern Ireland than the comparable provision in Great Britain. The third was that any consumer council must have clear power to deal with individual consumer complaints.
At the end of the Assembly debate on 14 December 1982, Members refused to take note. Neither the then Minister of State nor the Secretary of State wished to press ahead with the proposal in the face of such substantial reservations. The proposal was therefore withdrawn and the Secretary of State asked the Minister of State to consider how best the matter might be taken forward. His view was that there should be an objective and expert examination of existing arrangements by a small advisory group. This view was generally acceptable and an independent advisory group under the chairmanship of Professor Colin Campbell, professor of jurisprudence, Queen's University, Belfast with Mrs. Joan Macintosh, vice-chairman of the National Consumer Council and Mr. David Tench, legal adviser to the Consumers' Association, was established. The group's terms of reference were:
to review the arrangements for consumer protection in Northern Ireland currently provided by the Northern Ireland Consumer Council, the Northern Ireland Electricity Consumers Council, and the Northern Ireland Transport Users' Committee, having regard to:—


(a) the principle that overall, consumers in Northern Ireland should enjoy no less a standard of consumer protection than consumers in other parts of the United Kingdom;
(b) the special interest of consumers of the services provided by monopoly public utilities (but not the Post Office); and
(c) the desirability of devising a system which, having regard to the scale of Northern Ireland, will fill any gaps in the existing arrangements and provide a consumer protection service which is cost-effective, economical, comprehensive and well co-ordinated, and to make recommendations."
The report of that group and a discussion paper by the Department of Economic Development were published on 19 October 1983. The report and discussion paper were made available to this House and have been the subject of further consultation with local consumer interests and with the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The Assembly's report on the advisory group's report was placed in the Library of the House on 16 January 1984 and the Government's response was placed in the Library on 9 April 1984. These documents set out the issues involved. Hon. Members will appreciate that I have gone over this ground with the intention of demonstrating just how much deliberation has gone into the provisions which I am about to describe.
This order is not lengthy. It contains only eight articles and three schedules, but it is important to Northern Ireland and its people who are all, of course, consumers of varied goods and services. It proposes to establish a single new statutory body, the General Consumer Council for Northern Ireland to promote and safeguard the interests of consumers in Northern Ireland. It abolishes existing consumer protection bodies and subsumes their powers and duties into the new council. The wording of the order has been made deliberately wide to enable it to consider all aspects of consumer affairs.
It is proposed to bring the order into operation in two stages to enable the council to be appointed 14 days after the order is made and to put in train practical matters such as appointing staff and acquiring premises so that business can start on 1 April 1985 when it is hoped that the order will become fully operative.
Articles 3 and 4 provide for the establishment of a general consumer council for Northern Ireland and set out its functions. Article 4 makes it clear that the council will have the power to deal with individual complaints should it appear that that would be appropriate. This provision reflects the views which have been expressed that while the council should have the power to receive and handle individual complaints, that should not become its main activity. I expect that the council will become directly involved in individual complaints only where existing channels for complaints are inadequate or where no adequate alternative channel exists.
No matters have been specifically excluded from the remit of the council. However, in the various documents and debates which preceded the order there has been reference to postal services in particular. Postal and telecommunications services are, as we know, reserved matters, and although it is considered that the interests of consumers on such matters can best be safeguarded by the existing consumer bodies, the council will be expected to

ensure an input to consumer protection bodies in the reserved area should it appear appropriate in any particular circumstances.
Article 5 requires the council to consider and, where it appears to it to be desirable, to make recommendations on any matter affecting road or railway passenger transport services and facilities in Northern Ireland, and services and facilities provided for passengers travelling to and from Northern Ireland. The council will be competent to consider and, if appropriate, to make recommendations about sea and air services and facilities provided for passengers travelling to and from Northern Ireland.
Right hon. and hon. Members will know that there is a non-statutory body—the Air Transport Users Committee—appointed by the Civil Aviation Authority which is charged, inter alia, with the investigation of complaints against the suppliers of air transport services. Bearing in mind what I have just said in relation to article 4 about how I expect the council to interpret its brief, where there are existing routes to deal with complaints, I do not consider that there will be any conflict or overlap.
Article 5 also abolishes the Transport Users' Consultative Committee, empowers the new council to exercise its functions, and provides for consequential amendments to the Transport Act (Northern Ireland) 1967.
Article 6 requires the council to consider and, where it appears to it to be desirable, to make recommendations about any matter affecting the generation, distribution and supply of electricity including the variations of tariffs and the provision of new and improved services and facilities. It abolishes the Electricity Consumers' Council, empowers the new council to exercise its functions, and provides for consequential amendments to the Electricity Supply (Northern Ireland) Order 1972.
The provision to be made for electricity consumers and the proposed abolition of the Electricity Consumers' Council were probably the matters which provoked most comment because it was first proposed to form a single consumer protection body. I shall refer to this shortly.
When the then Minister commended the draft Agricultural Marketing (Northern Ireland) Order 1982 to the House on 16 July 1982, the Minister said that part II of that order made no provision for a consumer committee to report on the effects of any scheme on consumer interests. He pointed out that it was intended that that role would be undertaken by an amalgamated consumer protection body looking after a wide range of consumer interests in Northern Ireland. Therefore, article 7 now requires the council to consider and report to the head of the Department of Agriculture on any complaints made to it as to the effect on consumers of any agricultural marketing scheme in force under part II of the Agricultural Marketing (Northern Ireland) Order 1982. Article 7 also requires the council, where it appears to it to be desirable, to report to the head of the Department of Agriculture on the effects on consumers of any such scheme.
Provision is made for the council to be brought into consultation by the Milk Marketing Board for Northern Ireland in relation to a scheme administered by the board and to the manner in which the board is required to give written notice to the council of its plans to exercise certain powers conferred upon it by a scheme under part II of the order. The board is also required to consider any representations which the council may make in relation to the exercise of those powers. It is made clear in the order that the council will be concerned only with the effect of


agricultural marketing schemes on, or complaints in relation to such schemes by, domestic consumers as opposed to industrial or trade consumers. Article 7 also provides for consequential amendments to the Agricultural Marketing (Northern Ireland) Order 1982.
Article 8 enables the repeal, in schedule 3, of relevant parts of legislation replaced by the order.
Schedule 1 sets out the arrangements for the status of the council, the appointment of its officers and members, the ordering of its business, the employment of its staff, and the acquisition of premises, funding and accountability. It will have no more than 16 members, although the Department may by order, subject to negative resolution, vary that number. Funds will cover an initial salaried staff of nine—a part-time chairman and deputy chairman, a director, deputy director, research officer, administrative officer and ancillary staff. That compares with three part-time chairmen, and four and a half full-time salaried staff serving with existing bodies.
As the financing of the proposed council in the previous proposal for a draft order was the subject of some criticism, I should here say that I have set aside a sum not exceeding £200,000 for the financing of the new council. That is a major improvement on the £118,000 in the original proposal and is rather in excess of proportional funding for the Great Britain consumer bodies. I am, however, satisfied that this is perfectly justified because the nationalised industries consumer councils do not operate in Northern Ireland, and Northern Ireland interests in that area will be the responsibility of the new council.
The council will be required to establish four mandatory groups—for transport, food, electricity and energy other than electricity. There will be cross-membership between the electricity and energy groups. The council is also empowered to establish such other non-mandatory groups as it considers necessary and may co-opt to all groups persons with relevant experience. Such persons will not have voting powers, nor will they exceed the number of council members in any group, thus ensuring that control of its affairs remains with the council.
When dealing with article 6, I referred to the strong views held and expressed about the provisions to be made in relation to electricity. We inclined originally to the view that a single energy group, which would be capable of making comparisons on prices and services in relation to all forms of energy resources, would be the best way to provide for consumer protection—a view shared by a number of consumer bodies which is made clear in the evidence. Against this, I have balanced other views and so the order provides for separate mandatory energy and electricity groups with two council members common to both groups. I have however taken power to make subordinate legislation after consultations with the council and, subject to negative resolution, to reduce the number of mandatory groups which the council is required to have. I expect that this power will be excercised only where, in the first instance, the council indicates that it considers that it would be advantageous to reduce the number of mandatory groups.
I expect the initiative to come not from the Government, but from the consumer council, if, after experience, it finds that that is a better way of organisation.
The draft order represents a major step forward in consumer legislation in Northern Ireland. It is the product

of extensive consultation and has sought to reconcile as far as possible, conflicting views. I believe that it will provide for arrangements for consumer protection which will be both simple and effective, and which will admirably suit Northern Ireland's needs.
I commend it to the House.

Mr. Clive Soley: I welcome the Minister to his new post and tell him that if he continues to bring such orders before the House at this time of day, he will earn not only my gratitude but the gratitude of all hon. Members. When such orders usually come before the House in the early hours of the morning, most intelligent people are fast asleep in bed. It must be said that, sadly, in the normal run of events. the eyes of the nation would not be focussed on the General Consumer Council (Northern Ireland) Order. I welcome him and this practice, although I doubt whether he will be able to deliver the goods in this way in future.
I should emphasise that the function of the council is to promote and safeguard the interests of consumers. Those aims do not usually get the support from the Government that they deserve, and such councils are either starved of adequate resources to make them effective pressure groups or they are given insufficient powers or leaway. From my reading of the order, and my understanding of the views pressed upon the Minister by various people, I believe that it has emerged much better than might have been expected in the early days. Therefore, I welcome it on behalf of the Opposition.
The new council will excercise the functions previously performed by the Northern Ireland Transport Users' Committee and the Northern Ireland Electricity Consumers' Council, both of which have been abolished. It also creates a single statutory non-departmental body—the Northern Ireland General Consumers Council—to replace the Northern Ireland Consumers' Council, the Northern Ireland Transport Users' Council and the Northern Ireland Electricity Consumers' Council. The order provides, first, separate mandatory energy and electricity groups; secondly, two council members common to both groups; and, thirdly, departmental powers to amalgamate groups where appropriate.
I do not wish to take the time of the House, although I suspect that we might hear more from the Ulster Unionist Members. However, I should say that the report of the independent advisory group concluded that consumer protection in Northern Ireland has been accorded a low priority by the Departments responsible, and that there has been a relative lack of attention to education and training about consumer affairs. As the Minister said, Northern Ireland lags behind the rest of Britain in the attention given to consumer affairs and the resources provided.
The position is especially unfortunate given the problems faced by Northern Ireland consumers. I draw the Minister's attention to a fact about which I have addressed the house on several occasions and which, should I be in a position to do so, I shall bring to the Minister's attention in future. It is that the people in Northern Ireland face a relatively high cost of living, high unemployment, restricted energy sources and, therefore, high energy costs, and high rents for those who live in Government-financed or local authority housing. The people of Northern Ireland are being squeezed at both ends, from the point of view of income and the basic expenditure that any


family must incur. Therefore, it is especially important that the new consumers council should be free to operate effectively, that it is innovative and has the resources to do the job.
I recognise that there is general approval for the order. There is some opposition to it, but I suspect that it is less than some people would have us believe. My main regret is that it has taken two years or more to get the order before the House. The delay has disadvantaged the people of Northern Ireland, perhaps not for the first time.

Mr. Clifford Forsythe: I extend my good wishes to the Minister on assuming his new position. I wish him well, although I cannot promise that I and my party will agree with him at all times.
I and my party oppose the order for several reasons, but all those reasons could be covered by one phrase—a phrase that has been used in the House many times—which is that we in Northern Ireland wish to be treated in the same manner as is the rest of the United Kingdom. Not only does the order fail to do that, it leaves us in a much weaker position than heretofore, despite the fact that the right hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Prior), when he was Secretary of State, said in a letter to the Northern Ireland Assembly on 2 February 1983:
The objective of any further proposals would be to guarantee parity of consumer protection with Great Britain.
We also object to the methods by which such orders are passed, without hon. Members being able to change a full stop or a comma. It was pointless for the former Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Butler), to propose in a letter of 6 April 1984 to
lay this Order in Draft dispensing with the consultative stage in view of the very extensive consultations which have already taken place.
The Minister repeated that today. The truth is that the General Consumer Council (Northern Ireland) Order 1984 has only recently been available, and its contents have not been discussed until now.
Another reason for my opposition to the order is the cavalier treatment of the Northern Ireland Electricity Consumers' Council. That body has the support of almost everyone in Northern Ireland, and 25 of the 26 district councils supported its retention as a separate body. From beginnings similar to those of the Northern Ireland Consumers' Council and the Northern Ireland Transport Users' Council, the Northern Ireland Electricity Consumers' Council has left those bodies far behind, especially the transport users' body, in expertise and in concern for those whom it serves.
Even those who support the abolition of the electricity council praise its achievements, and I wish to put on record the admiration of the Official Unionist party for the excellent work carried out by the council, its chairman and its permanent staff. Some of those who supported the order, and who do not appear to wish Northern Ireland consumers to have parity with consumers in Great Britain, say that the Northern Ireland Electricity' Service is not a nationalised industry. Although one could concede that there is a difference between, for example, the National Coal Board and the Northern Ireland Electricity Service—leaving aside the different fuels—those of us who

fight daily against the unsympathetic Northern Ireland Electricity Service have no doubt that we are dealing with a Government monopoly or a nationalised industry.
The House need not take my word for that. I draw hon. Members' attention to Hansard of 19 December 1983. The hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) asked the former Minister of State for Northern Ireland for which nationalised industries he was responsible in Northern Ireland, and his plans for their future privatisation. The reply was:
There are no formal nationalised industries in Northern Ireland. However, the Northern Ireland Electricity Service, the Belfast Harbour Authority and the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company with its four subsidiaries (Ulsterbus, Citybus, Northern Ireland Railways and Northern Ireland Airports Limited) are regarded as broadly analogous to nationalised industries. I have at present no plans for their privatisation, but the prospects for these and other publicly owned industries in Northern Ireland are kept continually under review."—[Official Report, 19 December 1983; Vol. 51, c. 86.]
Having established that the Government, and more especially the former Minister, concede that the Northern Ireland Electricity Service is broadly the same as a nationalised industry, may we now consider what the real experts in this area said about the relationship between nationalised industries and nationalised industry consumer councils. What better can we do than to consult the Department of Trade and Industry's review of nationalised industries' consumer councils, entitled "Strategy for Reform December 1982." The foreword to the review contains a comment by the then Minister for Consumer Affairs:
I am convinced that the nationalised industries' consumer councils are needed now more than ever.
Paragraph 7 on page 2 states:
The nationalised industry consumer councils have an essential role in this monitoring process in relation to standards of service
and so on. Paragraph 8 on page 2 states:
The nationalised industry consumer councils should be a mouthpiece for the ordinary consumer; so it is essential for the channels upward from the local level, to the national level, in the nationalised industry consumer council structure, to work efficiently".
The review also called for an increase in statutory bodies in paragraph 26 on page 7. Since then the National Electricity Consumer Council for England and Wales has indeed been given statutory status from 1 September 1983.
Having illustrated the relationship between the Northern Ireland Electricity Service and the Great Britain nationalised industries, and emphasised how essential these nationalised industry consumer councils are, I shall now point to the difference between Northern Ireland's treatment, which under the order will have an amalgamation of bodies, and the review's conclusions for Great Britain.
Paragraph 29 of the departmental review, on page 8, clearly states:
One suggestion in the consultative document was to amalgamate the nationalised industry consumer councils into three broad sectoral organisations dealing respectively with energy/utilities, transport and communications. It was suggested that this might create a more streamlined and authoritative structure than at present. Opinion in the consultations however was decisively against it. The Government have accepted that its disadvantages—in terms of the risk of increased remoteness of the nationalised industry consumer structure both from consumers and from industry management—would outweigh the possible advantages. The Government intend therefore to retain the essentials of the present 'one to one' nationalised industry consumer council/industry structure".


What the order proposes for Northern Ireland is quite different. The consumer councils will indeed be amalgamated, even though that is contrary to what was said in the experts' paper.
Let us further compare like with like between Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the light of the former Secretary of State's letter stating that there should be parity between the two. I have with me the structure of consumer protection in the United Kingdom. In Great Britain there is the Electricity Consumers' council with 14 regional committees, whereas in Northern Ireland there is the Northern Ireland Electricity Consumer Council. In Great Britain there is the Post Office Users' National Council, with two regional councils for Scotland and Wales, whereas in the Province there is the Post Office Users' Council for Northern Ireland. In Great Britain there is the Gas Consumers' Council with 12 regional committees, but there is no comparable body in Northern Ireland. That is understandable. Great Britain has the Domestic Coal Consumers' Council, and again there is no comparable body in Northern Ireland.
In Great Britain there is the Central Transport Consultative Committee with 11 regional committees, and in the Province there is the Northern Ireland Transport Users' Committee. Great Britain has the National Consumer Council (General Matters) and Northern Ireland has the Northern Ireland Consumer Council. There is the National Water Council in Great Britain and the Northern Ireland Water Council in the Province.
This system exists at present, but when the order is approved—and it appears that it will be—all those structures will exist in Great Britain, but Northern Ireland will have the Post Office Users' Council for Northern Ireland. the Northern Ireland Water Council and a General Consumer Council. If that is like with like, my opinion differs greatly from that contained in the letters of the former Secretary of State, from the present Minister and those who support the order.
The position that I have just stated is totally opposed by the "Strategy for Reform". It may be argued that Northern Ireland does not have enough consumers to be given a Northern Ireland electricity consumers' council. The nearest comparable figures that I have been able to obtain shows that south Wales has an electricity consumers' council with four local committees catering for 0·85 million consumers. The north of Scotland has its electricity consumers' council with five local committees serving 0·55 million consumers. Northern Ireland, with 0·53 million consumers, has its one Northern Ireland Electricity Consumers' Council, and that will be abolished. It is obvious that Northern Ireland is not as well served at present, but at least it has its own electricity consumers' council.
I have quoted from the detailed and well-researched "Strategy for Reform" paper which, incidentally, is also quoted extensively in the Electricity Consumer Council's 1984 annual report. It can therefore be seen that the "Strategy for Reform" is of some significance in consumer affairs.
One could be forgiven for expecting that this important review would play some part in the examination of the whole subject in Northern Ireland. However, lo and behold, following the rejection of the similar draft General Consumer Council (Northern Ireland) Order 1983, the independent advisory group set up by the Minister of State responsible for the Department of Economic Development

under the chairmanship of Professor Campbell, arrived at almost the same conclusions as the Minister and, more importantly, the Department of Economic Development. That group was appointed by the Minister and given its guidelines by him. Its conclusions had been rejected previously. I shall not comment on the about face in the Northern Ireland Assembly when it overturned the previous decision on the almost identical 1983 order, except to say that that original decision was fully supported by my Assembly party colleagues and is in keeping with the opinion of my parliamentary party colleagues. That is to reject the concept of the amalgamation of our consumer councils into one general body.
The Campbell advisory group ignored the "Strategy for Reform". It never mentioned it. Nevertheless, it found time to take several sideswipes at the existing Northern Ireland Electricity Consumers' Council. I refer to paragraphs 3.1, 3.3 and 5.6.2. When those misleading remarks were challenged by the NIECC chairman, who asked for the evidence to back up the comments, Professor Campbell could only write in reply that he had
read the letter with care, but did not feel, having done so, that he would wish to qualify anything said in the report of the Group.
That is a fine explanation of how his advisory group reached its conclusions.
If, as it would appear, the order was constructed on the foundation of the advisory group's report, reaching a conclusion for Northern Ireland in direct opposition to the document "Strategy for Reform" for Britain, either Britain's system, which was accepted by the Government, is wrong, or the order should be withdrawn at once.
The changes in the new, 1984, order compared with the 1983 draft order are virtually contained in paragraph 10. However, in article 5(2) the letter (b) is missing after "1967". I do not know whether there is any significance in that. It may be a printing error. In addition, in article 6(2) the letter (c) is missing. I see from schedule 1 paragraph 2(2) that 50 per cent. of nominated members will no longer be confirmed by the Minister. Instead, all the members will be appointed by the Minister when he conducts the consultations. Schedule 1 paragraph 2(3) has no specified time limit for members. That was formerly three years.
Paragraph 10(8) of schedule 1 reveals the sting in the tail of the paragraph and, indeed, of the order. Any little concessions that were given under publicly elected representatives' pressure can, under the notorious negative resolution procedure, be removed at the will and pleasure of the Department. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) was good enough to explain to me that means that there is no procedure. I have experienced what consultation between any of the bodies in Northern Ireland and the Department means. I say "at the will and pleasure of the Department" regardless of any consultations carried out. If the Department wishes, as was the original intention, that the bodies should disappear into one body without the small sub-groups, under the negative resolution procedure it is within its power to remove them at a stroke. Who is to say that they will be there in six months' time?
I hope that the Minister will consider the suggestion that, if the negative resolution procedure is to be used in future if the order goes through, he will at least consult the


publicly elected representatives who are sent to the House to look after the interests of their constituents before he takes any decision.
In conclusion, I only hope that the uneasy feeling experienced by my hon. Friends and myself—that somehow the order gives the impression of being fashioned around the position or personality of a future chairman—will be assuaged by a future announcement that will surprise and please us all. My right hon. and hon. Friends will seek to divide the House on this matter.

Mr. James Molyneaux: I cannot claim to have the specialist knowledge of my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Forsythe) on this matter, but every impartial listener will have concluded that he put forward what has so far been an unanswerable case. I support what he said.
I, too, extend my good wishes to the Minister. He reminded us that the former Secretary of State appointed what he called an objective and specialist group to examine the matter under debate today. The most important of the terms of reference listed by the hon. Gentleman today was that the object should be to ensure that people in Northern Ireland enjoy no less a degree of consumer protection than those living in other parts of the United Kingdom—Britain. If that was the intention, why depart from the structures which exist in Britain? We are bound to go on to ask whether those structures in Britain are somehow defective. They appear from the chart to be workable and they seem to be a practical method of ensuring consumer protection across the field of activities in the nationalised industries with which they deal. Perhaps the Minister will be able to enlighten us, but so far I can see no justification for departing from the previous structure.
The Minister said, and I do not contest it, that the Northern Ireland Assembly devoted much study to the report of the specialist advisory body. But, as my hon. Friend reminded us, at an earlier stage the Assembly devoted a similar amount of time to considering the opposite view and came to opposite conclusions. It would not be fair to ask the Minister by whom the Northern Ireland Assembly members were manipulated and for what purpose. But it is strange that a body of elected representatives meeting in the Northern Ireland Assembly should suddenly stand on their heads and approve a recommendation which was precisely the opposite of that which was approved unanimously earlier.
The document to which my hon. Friend drew attention was, I think I am right in saying, produced by a former Minister with responsibility for consumer affairs in Britain. My hon. Friend quoted from paragraph 29 and the final words to which he drew attention should be repeated. It said:
The Government intend therefore to retain the essentials of the present 'one-to-one' … structure.
Nothing said during the consultations, and nothing produced by the advisory body, gives sound justifications for departing from what the Government intended, which was to retain the essentials of the one-to-one structure.
The hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley) said that energy costs in Northern Ireland tend to be higher than those in the remainder of the United Kingdom, and that is

common ground between us. The collapse of the Kinsale gas project makes us more dependent on electricity supplies. Coal has also played an important part in our energy supplies. My party has done its best to co-operate with the National Coal Board. It may be of some comfort to the hon. Member for Hammersmith to know that I have found Mr. MacGregor a little difficult to communicate with. On one occasion I attempted to get to grips with him on what I believed to be a matter of mutual interest. His acknowledgements of my letters contained even less than the cards that we send as a holding reply. In the end, he concluded that it was not a matter for the NCB and suggested that I seek advice elsewhere—yet I was simply trying to help him.
We have done our best to preserve a balance in energy supplies for Northern Ireland, and coal plays an important part in that. However, people in Northern Ireland will not be enthusiastic about a greater dependence on coal supplies in the light of Mr. Scargill's behaviour—unless, of course, the consultations between the NUM and Colonel Gaddafi provide for cheap Libyan oil for the remote parts of the United Kingdom.
The Government have acted against their professed target and doctrine of parity with Great Britain. We had always hoped that we and the Government were of similar minds on the matter. I accept that the hon. Member for Hammersmith takes a different view. We have accepted in good faith that the Government believe that there should be parity of treatment between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, but the Government have now acted against that doctrine.
People must not adopt a fallback position and say that because Northern Ireland is such a small part of the United Kingdom it cannot sustain or justify a wide range of consumer protection councils. My hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Forsythe) dealt admirably with that point when he said that most of the consumer protection bodies in Great Britain were regionalised and broken down into small bodies which, in the words of Lord Whitelaw, provide a close contact with people in the regions.
The argument that Northern Ireland is a small area and therefore should not have a full range of consumer protection devices cannot be sustained because they are available in similar small regions in Great Britain. The Government have acted contrary to their policies in Great Britain. Because of those unjustified contradictions, I have no alternative but to advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against this ill-thought-out legislation.

Dr. Boyson: I welcome the support of the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr. Soley). I listened carefully to the remarks of the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Forsythe) and the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux). In passing, may I say that I hope the hon. Member for Hammersmith will feel that he has as good service from me in the future as I have tried to provide in other areas in the past.
There have been a considerable number of changes from the original order, which was flatly turned down by the Northern Ireland Assembly. The money has been almost doubled and we have supported the idea that the electricity and energy groups should be separated within the council. The order places more stress on the power to consider complaints that are not resolved by the


organisation. One complaint was that people dealt only with the organisations, but the order provides that, if that fails, individuals can make representations to the consumer council.
I have before me a copy of the Government's reply on 9 April—signed by the then Secretary of State—to the Northern Ireland Assembly report on consumer protection. The reply accepted the majority of points raised. I understand the philosophical and political approach of the hon. Member for Antrim, South and the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley in their desire for total identity within the United Kingdom. But, surely, the important point is that there is parity in fact, and the order provides for that. It opens channels for the Northern Ireland consumer that will be as effective as those in England, Scotland and Wales.
The functions of the nationalised bodies will be taken up by the consumer councils and exercised by the General Consumer Council. I accept that the population of Northern Ireland is similar to that of south Wales and parts of Scotland. However, for the first time the consumers will have channels through which they can obtain satisfaction. Although the actual bodies may be different, they are equivalent to those in England, Wales and Scotland.
Earlier, I read out the names of those who would sit on the advisory group, and two of the three are known to me. I am astonished by the idea that the Government can control the advisory group. The belief in the influence of the Government and previous Northern Ireland Ministers is such that I am humbled by the thought that I should achieve similar total control. The professor of jurisprudence at Queens university, Belfast, is not known to me, but I am aware of the standards and status of that university. I would be surprised if a distinguished scholar from that university did not have independence of mind. Mrs. Joan Macintosh is the vice-chairman of our National Consumer Council, so the grip of Northern Ireland Ministers in patronage will be minimal—even if such patronage would have any influence on her—which I doubt, as I know that she is a powerful lady. Similarly, David Tench, who is the legal adviser to the Consumers' Association, is of independent mind.
Although the philosophical and political considerations have been mentioned by hon. Members, we are concerned with the satisfaction of the consumer. I received a letter recently from the Consumers' Association. I did not ask for the letter and it is not an example of the extension of government. I did not know that right hon. and hon. Members from Northern Ireland would divide the House this afternoon. It is pleasant to be surprised but the surprise of a Division is not one that I want on every occasion following my appearance at the Dispatch Box. The letter is signed by the deputy director and not by one of the two members who might have been influenced in the past. He wrote:
I am enclosing, for your information, a copy of a briefing note on the General Consumer Council (Northern Ireland) Order 1984, which we will be circulating to a number of MPs'.
I should like to know to which Members the briefing note was sent. The letter continues:
As you will see, the Consumers' Association supports the Government's proposal to establish a unified Consumer Council for Northern Ireland and to establish one group in relation to the supply of electricity and another in relation to the supply of other forms of energy.
The hon. Member for Antrim, South and I share at least one interest and that is football. I am glad that Northern

Ireland has a good football record. One of the features of my move to the Northern Ireland Office which delighted me was the soccer record of Northern Ireland and even that of the Republic. The hon. Gentleman and I will see eye to eye, or even foot to foot, on soccer if on no other matter.
I should explain to Northern Ireland Members that I have taken about six weeks to learn what I must say on certain matters and must not say on others. They will appreciate that that remark is not directed to philosophy. It will not be my purpose to hurt anyone intentionally. I have tried to embody the old definition of an English gentleman.
It is not the Government's intention to override the General Consumer Council. If the council wants to retain the four bodies, it will do so. I hope that that will satisfy to some extent right hon. and hon. Members from Northern Ireland. Any change will have to follow a decision of the council to make a change. The decision will not come from the Government and we shall not start the process of any change.
I realise that right hon. and hon. Members are concerned about those who wall sit on the new body. Every body is as strong or as weak as those who sit on it and it is important that there are as many independent-minded individuals on the council as possible, provided that they are not so independent that they represent no one but themselves. We do not want a set of anarchists. There s a need for individuals who represent bodies of opinion within Northern Ireland and who have the strength of mind and the will to state their views with clarity. We shall be receiving nominations and I shall be disappointed if right hon. and hon. Members from Northern Ireland do not submit recommendations. They are citizens of Northern Ireland and they will be affected by the outcome. I have heard their views this afternoon, which they have made clear, and I expect them and all other interested bodies in the Province to submit recommendations.
I know that I would need the tongue of an angel to convince right hon. and hon. Members from Northern Ireland that they should not vote against the order. However, I shall plead with them for a moment although I do not believe that I shall be able to influence their decision. I know that they are a truly independent group and that they would form a splendid council. We have been waiting for the order for two years. It has taken longer to get it through the House than the gestation of an elephant. If I were to say, "Yes, you are quite right"—I am certainly not saying that—"and we shall take the order back and start again", the debate would start all over again and protection for the consumer, which is the purpose of the order, would be further delayed. Upon that I rest my case. I believe that the order will be advantageous to the Northern Ireland consumer and the sooner it is implemented the better.

Question put:—

The House divided: Ayes 173, Noes 8.

Division No. 480]
[4.54 pm


AYES


Alison, Rt Hon Michael
Banks, Robert (Harrogate)


Alton, David
Beith, A. J.


Amess, David
Bellingham, Henry


Aspinwall, Jack
Best, Keith


Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.
Blackburn, John


Atkins, Robert (South Ribble)
Boscawen, Hon Robert


Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)
Bottomley, Peter


Baldry, Tony
Bottomley, Mrs Virginia






Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)
Griffiths, E. (B'y St Edm'ds)


Boyson, Dr Rhodes
Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)


Brandon-Bravo, Martin
Gummer, John Selwyn


Bright, Graham
Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)


Brinton, Tim
Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)


Brown, M. (Brigg &amp; Cl'thpes)
Hancock,.Mr. Michael


Browne, John
Hannam, John


Bruinvels, Peter
Hargreaves, Kenneth


Buck, Sir Antony
Harvey, Robert


Burt, Alistair
Hayward, Robert


Butterfill, John
Heddle, John


Campbell-Savours, Dale
Henderson, Barry


Carlisle, John (N Luton)
Hill, James


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Hind, Kenneth


Carlisle, Rt Hon M. (W'ton S)
Holt, Richard


Cash, William
Hooson, Tom


Channon, Rt Hon Paul
Howard, Michael


Chapman, Sydney
Howarth, Alan (Stratf'd-on-A)


Chope, Christopher
Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)


Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Howell, Ralph (N Norfolk)


Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)
Hunt, David (Wirral)


Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)
Jackson, Robert


Colvin, Michael
Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick


Coombs, Simon
Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)


Cope, John
Jones, Robert (W Herts)


Currie, Mrs Edwina
Key, Robert


Dickens, Geoffrey
Knight, Gregory (Derby N)


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.
Latham, Michael


Durant, Tony
Lawler, Geoffrey


Emery, Sir Peter
Lawrence, Ivan


Evennett, David
Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)


Eyre, Sir Reginald
Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark


Fallon, Michael
Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)


Favell, Anthony
Lilley, Peter


Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey
Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)


Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Lord, Michael


Forth, Eric
MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)


Fowler, Rt Hon Norman
MacKay, John (Argyll &amp; Bute)


Franks, Cecil
Mates, Michael


Fraser, Peter (Angus East)
Mather, Carol


Freeman, Roger
Maude, Hon Francis


Fry, Peter
Meadowcroft, Michael


Gale, Roger
Meyer, Sir Anthony


Galley, Roy
Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)


Gardiner, George (Reigate)
Montgomery, Fergus


Garel-Jones, Tristan
Moynihan, Hon C.


Gow, Ian
Needham, Richard


Grant, Sir Anthony
Neubert, Michael





Onslow, Cranley
Stern, Michael


Oppenheim, Phillip
Stevens, Martin (Fulham)


Ottaway, Richard
Stradling Thomas, J.


Page, Sir John (Harrow W)
Sumberg, David


Page, Richard (Herts SW)
Taylor, John (Solihull)


Pawsey, James
Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)


Penhaligon, David
Temple-Morris, Peter


Percival, Rt Hon Sir Ian
Thompson, Donald (Calder V)


Pollock, Alexander
Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)


Powley, John
Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)


Proctor, K. Harvey
Thurnham, Peter


Rathbone, Tim
Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)


Rhodes James, Robert
Tracey, Richard


Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Viggers, Peter


Rifkind, Malcolm
Waddington, David


Robinson, Mark (N'port W)
Waller, Gary


Ryder, Richard
Wardle, C. (Bexhill)


Sackville, Hon Thomas
Warren, Kenneth


Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
Watts, John


Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)
Wilkinson, John


Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')
Winterton, Mrs Ann


Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Winterton, Nicholas


Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)
Wolfson, Mark


Sims, Roger
Wood, Timothy


Skeet, T. H. H.
Woodcock, Michael


Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)
Wrigglesworth, Ian


Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)
Yeo, Tim


Soames, Hon Nicholas
Younger, Rt Hon George


Speed, Keith



Speller, Tony
Tellers for the Ayes:


Spencer, Derek
Mr. John Major and Mr. Ian Lang.


Steen, Anthony





NOES


Forsythe, Clifford (S Antrim)
Taylor, Rt Hon John David


Maginnis, Ken
Walker, Cecil (Belfast N)


Molyneaux, Rt Hon James



Powell, Rt Hon J. E. (S Down)
Tellers for the Noes:


Skinner, Dennis
Mr. Harold McCusker and Mr. Roy Betts.


Smyth, Rev W. M. (Belfast S)

Question accordingly agreed to.

Resolved,
That the draft General Consumer Council (Northern Ireland) Order 1984, which was laid before this House on 22nd October, be approved.

European Communities (Greenland)

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind): I beg to move,
That the draft European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (Change in Status of Greenland) Order 1984, which was laid before this House on 22nd October, be approved.
Greenland, though geographically distinct from the continent of Europe, was at the time of Denmark's entry to the Community fully integrated with the kingdom of Denmark, of which it was and is a part. It was, therefore, obliged to join the Community with the rest of Denmark, although 70 per cent. of the Greenland population voted against membership in the referendum in which Denmark voted to accept membership. In 1979, however, there came an important change in Greenland's relationship with the rest of Denmark. She received a substantial degree of home rule, and in the elections in 1979 the Greenland party opposed to EEC membership won a majority.
Fisheries are Greenland's major economic activity, accounting for half her exports. Greenlanders have always seen disadvantages in the application of the Community's fisheries policy for which, as a territory remote from other member states and with relatively little industry or agriculture, they saw few compensating advantages.
In the referendum on the membership issue in 1982, Greenland opted for withdrawal by a small majority and sought associated status under the Community's arrangements for overseas countries and territories. In May 1982, the Danish Government therefore submitted a memorandum to the Council of Ministers proposing that Greenland should cease to be within the geographical scope of the treaties establishing the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community and be added to the list of overseas countries and territories in annex IV to the EEC treaty. As the treaties contain no provision for the withdrawal of a member state, or a part of one, the precise terms of Greenland's change in status had to be negotiated within the Community to provide appropriate amendments to the treaties.
During the negotiations it was agreed also that Greenland should cease to be within the geographical scope of the treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community. After discussion in the Council on a request from Denmark, the treaty referred to in the schedule to the order was signed in Brussels on 13 March 1984.
I should like to draw the attention of the House to the details of the treaty. The purpose of the treaty is to give effect to Greenland's wish to make the transition from membership of the Community—as a part of Denmark—to association with it. The treaty does that by removing Greenland from the scope of application of those provisions of the EEC treaty which apply to the European territory of members of the Community in general. The EEC treaty is amended by the inclusion of Greenland within its part IV, relating to the association of overseas countries and territories within the Community. In addition, the new treaty removes Greenland from the geographical scope of the treaties establishing the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community.
Annexed to the treaty is a protocol, which provides for duty-free access to the Community for fish and fishing

products coming from Greenland in return for satisfactory arrangements for access by the Community to Greenland's fishing zones. The protocol provides also for the application to Greenland of the Community's detailed arrangements on tariff treatment and other matters for the overseas countries and territories in relation to products covered by both the EEC and the European Coal and Steel Community treaty.
Arrangements were also agreed between Greenland and the Community to provide for a framework fisheries agreement. This established principles governing Community fishing in Greenland waters, with a protocol setting the initial quotas for Community fishermen for the first five years. The Community's fishing opportunities under the agreement are to be balanced by the annual payment to Greenland from the Community budget of 26·5 million ecu—about £15 million. Greenland will not, however, receive aid from the European development fund by virtue of her OCT status, during the validity of the fisheries protocol. There is also provision for procedures under which the Community may act in the event of the overall agreement being disturbed. The regulations providing for these arrangements are not listed in the schedule to the order, but it is nevertheless right to mention them to the House, as they are intended to form one package with the treaty and protocol. The draft texts making up the complete package were submitted to the scrutiny of the Select Committee on European Legislation on 24 February 1984.
The treaty is to come into force on 1 January 1985 if all member states have ratified it by then. Otherwise it will come into force one month after the last state has ratified. Subject to the views of this House, we expect to have completed the necessary procedures for ratification by the 1 January 1985 deadline.
The House will be aware that the effect of the order is that the treaty with attached protocol will be able to operate in the law of this country in accordance with their provisions.
Before I conclude, I should say a brief word to the House about the agreement on fisheries to which I referred earlier. The agreement, which was laid before the House on 14 August, has several interlocking elements intended to balance the interests of Greenland and those of the Community. For its part, Greenland will continue to benefit from duty-free access to the Community market for fish and fishery products in return for her commitment to the fisheries agreement with the Community. Under the protocol to the agreement, taking into account catches by Greenland vessels, the basic quotas set for Community fishermen for the first five years represent an overall level virtually equivalent to the quotas set by the Council of Fisheries Ministers for all the major Greenland fish stocks. It is important to note that the Community is not being asked to alter its current fishing opportunties significantly. Any major reduction in current Community fishing efforts at Greenland would have led to claims for compensation from Community fishermen elsewhere in Community waters, and could have upset the entire balance of the common fisheries policy—established with such difficulty only last year. This has been avoided and the quotas between member states, including the United Kingdom, will be allocated in accordance with the normal procedures and criteria.

Mr. Robin Cook: Will the Minister repeat the assurance given to the House in July that the United Kingdom quota which will emerge from the process will be no less than that which Great Britain has hitherto enjoyed in Greenland waters?

Mr. Rifkind: Yes, the division of quotas between the various member states of the Community is being allocated on the basis of the historical share of Greenland waters. Great Britain's historical share is relatively low, but my understanding is that it will amount to what what we have enjoyed traditionally.
All in all, the Community's fishing opportunities in west and east Greenland waters, including those quotas which may be allocated to Norwegian and Faroese vessels under the relevant reciprocal fisheries agreements, amount to some 100,000 tonnes of cod equivalent—mainly cod, red fish, Greenland halibut and shrimps. These opportunities are balanced by the annual payment to Greenland to which I referred earlier. The Community's fishing rights in Greenland waters will not, however, end at the beginning of 1995. Although the agreement is concluded for 10 years, there is provision for successive six-year periods, thus providing a solid basis on which Community and Greenland fishermen can plan for the future.
I hope that I have given the House sufficient general explanation of the background to the order and its objective for the order to commend itself to the House as representing a fair and balanced deal for the Community and for this country.

Mr. Eric Deakins: I rise with some trepidation. I was unaware that I might be one of the few Opposition speakers. I draw attention to the symbolic significance of the order.
I shall concentrate on three points. The first is that the order and the treaty which is embodied in it prove conclusively, if there had been any doubt, that it is possible for a territory to withdraw from the Common Market. Many of us were in no doubt about that because that is what the referendum campaign in 1975 was about. I accept that we lost it, but there were still people at that stage who thought that it was impossible for any territory or country, once having signed the Treaty of Rome, to withdraw. If the referendum campaign had not convinced them of that, this order must knock on the head for ever the belief that it is impossible for any country legally to withdraw.
Secondly, the order and the treaty which it embodies prove conclusively that it is possible for a country or territory which withdraws, or seeks to do so, to negotiate satisfactory and mutually beneficial arrangements to cover the period after the withdrawal. Although Greenland's problems are tiny, perhaps, in proportion to the withdrawal of a larger country such as the United Kingdom, nevertheless, there is no doubt that it is possible to negotiate. Given good will on both sides it should be possible for Great Britain to do the same.
My third point is seen in article 2 of protocal 2. It is a new feature, one that I confess I had not realised when the Foreign Secretary made his statement to the House on 14 March reporting the Foreign Affairs Council on the previous day, which had approved the treaty. Article 2 makes it clear that not all the negotiations affecting the

future relationship of a state or territory which withdraws from the Community and the Community need be settled and finalised before the withdrawal becomes accomplished legally. Article 2 makes it clear that there are to be continuing negotiations on a number of issues. That is a useful parallel for Great Britain if any future British Government should decide to withdraw.
I do not wish to delay the House as there is all-party agreement on the order. It should be borne in mind that what the Minister said about Greenland finding few compensating advantages for the disadvantages of Community membership, in the opinion of many of us applies to Great Britain. While it may be thought that that is a partisan statement or a reflection of political positions which have been taken up over a number of years—certainly in my case—I invite the attention of the House to the recent report of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry and the current investigation by the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee, in the latter case to the economic benefits of Great Britain's membership of the EEC and in the former case to the trade benefits. It was clear from the report of the Trade and Industry Select Committee that it could not find any of the compensating trade benefits for the cost of the common agricultural policy which were promised when we joined.
I do not wish to draw any further parallels because that would be inappropriate when we are discussing a fairly narrow order. The occasion should not pass, however, without our recording our appreciation of what has happened in the case of Greenland. We should send a message to our colleagues in the House and to the country that this is an example which, if the British people and a future British Government wish, we can follow.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: As the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins) said, this is a non-controversial order. It would be a mistake to draw wider conclusions from it. There is now a growing acceptance in Great Britain that for Britain membership of the Common Market has brought about an appalling loss of jobs, has had a disastrous effect on our trade and caused a major reduction in our freedom. I understand that the Government would not be willing to accept any manuscript amendment to add the words "United Kingdom" to the order.
I am sure that all of us would wish to join in congratulating the people of Greenland on freeing themselves from the appalling burdens and stifling bureaucracy of the Common Market. They have, of course, until recently, been subject to the common agricultural policy which seems to have given them high prices without any compensating advantages. It has given them high steel prices which have unfortunately had a severe effect on the public works which are developing there.
The people of Greenland have been subject—this has cost a great deal of bureaucratic time—to stifling bureaucracy. It sometimes appals us to see the volume of legislation which pours out of the Commission, applying to the United Kingdom, Greenland and others. I saw two recent examples in the European papers. One was the final decision relating to the noise made by lawn mowers. My hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for consumer affairs advised me only yesterday of a new Common Market directive which is affecting jobs in the Midlands.


It regulates the contents of stink bombs. That kind of bureaucracy undoubtedly has a very serious effect on a free country, and to that extent we should congratulate Greenland on freeing itself of an unnecessary burden.
As the Minister rightly said, Greenland has had to pay a substantial price for getting out of the Common Market. It has had to agree to give a very substantial amount of the fish within its waters. The best estimate I have is that the amount, at 1982 prices, was equivalent to 60 million ecu, which is about £35 million. For that, Greenland is being paid about £15 million per annum. Although the hon. Member for Walthamstow said that satisfactory terms were negotiated, I think that the Minister who replied to the debate in July was right to say that it was a very satisfactory deal for the rest of the Common Market countries, because they are effectively taking £35 million worth of fish annually for a payment of only £15 million.
There are five specific questions on which I should greatly appreciate the Minister's observations. The first is the only general one. In view of the great problem that we have had in going through this legislative procedure since the people of Greenland again voted to leave the Common Market in February 1982, would it not be possible for the Ministers in the Common Market to find an easier and less complex way for countries or parts of countries to leave the Common Market if they wish to do so? I do not think that it adds in any way to the dignity or the development of the Common Market to have an organisation that is so difficult to get out of. It compares very unfavourably with that superb organisation the European Free Trade Association, with only 19 civil servants, based in Geneva, no agricultural policy, no regional policy, and no nonsensical Socialist bureaucracy, and which simply concentrates on getting trade barriers down and promoting political co-operation.
My four specific points are rather more detailed. First, could the Minister again say that the Greenland people will have unimpeded preferential access for their fishery products to the rest of the European Community? The Minister was absolutely specific about that in his speech, but in July, when EC document No. 5063/84 was discussed, there seemed to be some reservations and restrictions. Page 5 of a letter issued in Brussels on 17 February 1984 said that preferential access was among the advantages on Greenland's side, hut that they depended
on the preferential margin actually granted as compared with the rates accorded competing non-member countries."—[Official Report, 20 July 1984; Vol. 64, c. 678.]
I said at the time that I did not know what on earth that meant. Unfortunately, the Minister was not able to explain it in detail. It would help if the Minister would simply repeat that it is unimpeded access and not subject to any reservations whatever.
My second specific question relates to how precisely the agreement on fishery quotas is to observed. The Minister will know that one of the issues in the Greenland referendum, which we all followed closely, was that Greenland considered that the Common Market agreements were not being strictly observed. We know that to be a fact from our own experience. There was, for example, the ridiculous agreement on reducing steel production within the Common Market. We slashed our steel capacity. Unfortunately, some other members of the Common Market increased their capacity, and we fared very badly. Similarly, we all agreed to cut our milk production. In the past three months, Britain has reduced

its output by 7·5 per cent. while four other members of the Common Market have increased their milk output. Obviously, that is part and parcel of what happens with Common Market agreements.
As Greenland will no longer be in the Common Market, I think the Minister has some kind of duty to say, on behalf of the Community, precisely how the fishery quotas are to be observed. Although there is a limited quota allocated to the United Kingdom, the Minister will be well aware that we did not take up those quotas because the amount was tiny and Greenland was very far away.
The only people who fish Greenland waters are the Germans. The Germans have a substantial quota allocated to them, worth about £30 million a year. In what way are we to ensure that the quota is observed? The Greenlanders will see German vessels coming into their waters in substantial numbers, but how can they in any way ensure that the Germans will keep their deal? The Germans, the French and the Italians have a particularly poor record in keeping Common Market agreements when the interests of other countries are affected, and I wonder whether it is fair for us not to have some kind of guarantee that the quotas will be kept.
My third detailed question is about Euratom. As a member of Euratom, there was an obligation on Greenland to go ahead and mine for uranium, whether it wanted to or not. The Minister will be aware of the very significant opinion in Greenland which takes the view that uranium should not be mined at all. Will the Minister say whether Greenland is now free not to mine uranium, and has not accepted any obligation to mine uranium whether it wants to or not?
My fourth detailed question relates to the rights of Greenlanders as members of an overseas territory. I am very confused about the rights given to overseas territories. For example, in relation to hospitals in Southend, guidance has been given by the Department of Health and Social Security that I find very strange. If someone appears at Southend hospital with a broken leg and says, "I come from Guyana", the immediate question that the hospital authorities have to ask that person, before he can be given consideration, is, "From which part of Guyana do you come?" If he comes from British Guyana, he has to pay £90 a day for his treatment. If he comes from French Guyana, he gets free treatment, because French Guyana is classified as an overseas territory of the Common Market, and the people are thereby entitled to free treatment. The same principle applies to countries such as Martinique and other French overseas territories, but not to British overseas countries.
Will the Minister say whether, under the special status of overseas territory, Greenlanders will be afforded the same opportunities as residents of countries such as French Guyana, which are classified as overseas territories? I find it particularly offensive that we discriminate against members of the British Commonwealth while at the same time giving costly health treatment free to members of France's overseas territories.
If someone from French Guyana looks for employment in Southend, the restrictions are very limited, but only recently, a firm in Southend was instructed to get rid of an Australian, although he had shrapnel in his leg from flying with Fighter Command in the war.
In relation to Greenland, can the Minister say whether we are adding to the number of overseas territories which will be fully entitled to hospital treatment and to the help


of the welfare services at low cost? It is generally an unsatisfactory arrangement. I think that the view of most sane people in the House of Commons is that we should either make provision for our Commonwealth friends and some others as a whole, or treat all foreigners alike. I find it very difficult to see why we should regard people from Greenland or French Guyana as having greater entitlement to free medical services in Britain than our friends from Australia, New Zealand, Zimbabwe and other parts of the Commonwealth.
I hope that the Minister will clarify the points that I have mentioned. I make it abundantly clear that I am asking the questions only for clarification and not because I wish to oppose the order.
Although there is a relatively small attendance, we are this afternoon witnessing the removal from the Common Market of half the land mass of the Common Market—in fact, of the second largest island in the world. The only larger island is Australia. Greenland is indeed a very large island. Its people have fought hard to regain their freedom. They have battled with the Common Market's bureaucracy for no less than three years and now they see an opportunity to rid themselves of the appalling interventionist policies of the EEC, the stifling bureaucracy and the enormous economic burdens. I am sure that, although Greenland has a small, independent-minded population, it would be the unanimous wish of the House to wish the people well on having freed themselves from those burdens and on entering a period in which they can enjoy more freedom and independence.

Mr. Michael Brown: I agree with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins) and my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor), because they both drew attention to the significance of this event. I am delighted to see that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is listening to the debate. Who knows that he may look forward to the day when, true to his conscience, he will be at the Dispatch Box moving a similar order for this country? We all know where his true feelings lie on the issue.
The order makes it clear once and for all that it is the right of the people of any country to decide that they want to be a member of the Common Market in one year and their right, through their Government, to decide in another year that they want to change their minds. We must make sure that the people in this country are aware that final sovereignty over us being a signatory to a treaty and a member of an organisation such as the Common Market is and must always be, here in the House of Commons.
The order shows that there would be nothing wrong in a political party being elected to power upon the basis that it wanted to renegotiate the Treaty of Rome and put before the House of Commons, with a mandate from the people, an order along those lines. That must be stressed. I hope that one day in years to come, a Conservative Government might feel themselves capable of putting forward such an order. However, we must recognise that it is absolutely right and proper in our democracy for it to be stressed that a member country, with the democratic votes of its people, has the right to change its mind.
I am speaking in favour of the order because of the reason given by the people of Greenland for deciding that they were no longer at home in the Common Market. The principal reason that drove them to renegotiate their position in the Common Market was the deal that they got out of the common fisheries policy. I represent the town of Cleethorpes, which adjoins the fishing port of Grimsby. I am sure that I shall have the support of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) in what I am about to say. If, in a referendum, the people in his and my constituencies judged the Common Market purely on the basis of the fishing deal that came out of the common fisheries policy, they would probably arrive at the same decision as the people of Greenland.
In moving the order, my hon. Friend the Minister of State drew attention to the fact that, for Greenland in particular, there were no other compensating benefits from membership and that Greenlanders were so heavily dependent on their fishing industry that they found themselves in this situation. The people of Grimsby are virtually dependent on their fishing industry and see little compensating benefits from membership of the Common Market. That is why the hon. Member for Great Grimsby takes such a strong stance on the Common Market.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Are my hon. Friend's constituents reassured that, through Common Market funds, we are supplying 167,000 tonnes of cheap food each week to the Russians to alleviate starvation?

Mr. Brown: I do not think that the people of Grimsby would see it in that light. My hon. Friend characteristically illustrates the reasons why so many people are unhappy about the present situation in the Common Market.
I conclude by welcoming the order and stressing once again that, at the end of the day, it must always be the right of any sovereign country to change its mind. There must be many hon. Members on both sides of the House who are deeply committed to the principle of the Common Market, but they should recognise that it must always be the right of any Government, with the backing of the people, to change their minds and be able to renegotiate their position within the Common Market to the extent that such an order can be brought before their sovereign Parliament.

Mr. K. Harvey Proctor: I should like to join the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins) and my hon. Friends the Members for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) and Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) in congratulating Greenland on bringing to a conclusion its withdrawal from the European Economic Community. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East said that Greenland was a large land mass. We should wish it well in its associate status with the EEC. All Back-Bench Members who have spoken hitherto have congratulated Greenland on taking that action and wished it well for the future.
I should like to know from my hon. Friend the Minister of State what his Department's attitude is. Have similar congratulations and good wishes been sent from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East said, from Her Majesty the Queen herself? It would be right and fitting on this last day of our parliamentary Session to ensure that


those at the Foreign Office at senior levels of Government sent a telegram tonight, perhaps after Prorogation, to the leaders of Greenland, expressing the good wishes of this sovereign Parliament for Greenland's future and congratulating them on the action that they have taken.
As all those who have spoken in the debate mentioned, this may be the opportunity for paving the way for other members of the European Community either to leave the Community at a future date or to leave and acquire associate status. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East said that it was a little too late in the day for my hon. Friend the Minister to accept today what he described as a manuscript amendment to the order. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes spoke of the possibility of parliamentary time being found in future for a debate on whether the United Kingdom should stay in the EEC——

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. Whatever the merits of such a proposition, it is not for the House to debate it today. We are talking about the membership of Greenland, not that of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Proctor: I am grateful for that advice. I was only paraphrasing what other hon. Members informed the House. I was not expressing——

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is pushing a little further the license that I allowed previous speakers. I hope that he will not seek to exploit my tolerance further.

Mr. Proctor: I am grateful for your advice, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I should like to refer to specific questions arising from the order about differences that might apply to other states leaving the Community. I should like my hon. Friend the Minister to comment on that. As I understand it, if any member country other than the United Kingdom wished to leave the European Community, the correct procedure would be to table an order similar to that now before us relating back to the European Communities Act 1972. My interest is in whether the same procedure would suffice if this country wished to follow the same path. I presume that in those circumstances the Government would say that primary legislation would be required to repeal the 1972 Act, which puts this country in a position different from that of Greenland or any other member country. I should be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister would clarify that point.
In conclusion, I remind the House of what was said in the Government document that was pushed through our letterboxes during the 1975 referendum campaign.

Mr. Robert Rhodes James: Which side were you on?

Mr. Proctor: My hon. Friend asks which side I was on. I am happy to declare my interest. I was on the side of the United Kingdom and its interests and against membership of the European Community. Having worked at that time for the group of Members, including the present Leader of the House, who opposed EEC membership at that time, I voted and campaigned against membership.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that other hon. Members who are waiting to speak will not be tempted to try to convert this into a depate on Britain's membership

of the EEC. We are discussing an order relating to Greenland's membership. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and the House will stick to that.

Mr. Proctor: I apologise profusely to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was attracted, or provoked, by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James). I was actually coming to the end of my speech. I wish to conclude by quoting from the documents that were pushed through letterboxes in 1975.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: References to letterboxes in Greenland might be in order, but not references to letterboxes in Cambridge.

Mr. Proctor: In that case, I shall refer to letterboxes in Greenland as it is in Greenland that a democratic decision has been taken. We were told in 1975 that continuing membership of the European Community relied upon the
continuing consent of Parliament and People".
Greenland has now taken its decision. We shall no doubt take ours in due course.

Mr. Tony Marlow: I am pleased to follow the eloquent comments of my hon. Friends. I hope that I shall riot stray from the straight and narrow path of order if I say that, unlike them, I do not seek Britain's withdrawal from the Community. Nevertheless, I have strong views on the subject.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) said, Greenland is the biggest island in the Community. We are probably the second biggest. Greenland has a very large land mass indeed. When this measure is passed, as I am sure that it will be, with good will, the Community will be deprived of a significant proportion of its land mass. Size, scale and territory are matters of significance because they mean resources. The Community must therefore consider seriously its future size and scope, especially its land mass and its geographical and geological resources, in the interests of future generations. Will the loss of the great land mass of Greenland be balanced by the accession of Spain and Portugal? Will that accession take place and, if so, when?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Spain and Portugal are a long way from Greenland. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will turn his attention northwards.

Mr. Marlow: I fully accept your remonstrations, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As we are losing a part of the Community, however, some members will no doubt wish to seek compensation by gaining territory in other areas. We are losing the resources, geology and scope of Greenland. In the overall context of the Community, therefore, in economic terms and perhaps potentially in military terms, it is important to assess whether those losses will be balanced by compensating gains in other areas. I put it to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the accession of Spain and Portugal and whether and when it is to come about are matters of concern arising out of the order.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is entitled to his opinion, but in this matter it is the opinion of the Chair that counts. I hope that he will turn his attention away from Spain and Portugal and towards the order before the House.

Mr. Marlow: Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The debate is entirely about Greenland and you are quite right to tell me that that is the case.
I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister has picked up the tone and import of my message. I very much look forward to his reply.

Dr. John Marek: I shall be brief, but I believe that it is right that another Opposition Member should congratulate Greenland on the courageous decision that it has taken, albeit by a small majority. I wish the people of Greenland every success on the course that they have decided to map out for themselves in the future.
I echo the words of the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) in asking the Minister whether arrangements similar to those mentioned for French Guyana and Martinique will be available to Greenland after its withdrawal from the Community. This is certainly a bone of contention. I visited St. Helena in the summer and discovered that for St. Helenians a month's stay in hospital costs about £1,500 in Capetown but £5,000 in the United Kingdom. Many people there are upset at the advantages apparently enjoyed by some dependent territories of Community countries vis-a-vis others. Comparisons were frequently made with Martinique. I hope that the Minister will address himself to that and let us know exactly what the position will be for Greenland.
Having said that, I congratulate the people of Greenland and wish them every success.

Mr. Robin Cook: I should set the Minister's mind at rest from the outset by saying that the Opposition do not intend to divide the House on this order. Nevertheless, we have had a pleasing debate and it would be wrong to let it end without a formal response from the Opposition Front Bench.
It is only about a dozen sitting days since we last debated Greenland's withdrawal from the Community and there was a certain similarity between the comments made by the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) on that occasion and today, but they were none the worse for that as it was a vigorous speech.
I think that the hon. Member for Southend, East will agree that today, as in July, there has been a surprising lack of enthusiasm in the House for Greenland's membership of the Common Market. Indeed, a curious feature of the seven or eight debates on the Common Market that have taken place during the year in which it has been my duty to turn up at the Dispatch Box on such occasions has been the total absence in the House of any enthusiam for anyone's membership of the Common Market. These who took us into the Common Market on their prospectus have not attended the debates in which we have discussed the consequences of membership.
My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins) rightly referred to the Select Committee report on the trade consequences. It would have been interesting to have a response to that from at least one of those who in previous years urged that the consequences would be quite different.
The significance of this debate is one to which every speaker has drawn attention. That is that here we see the withdrawal from the Common Market of what is a small population—one that is less than the population of

virtually every constituency represented in the Chamber—but a very large land mass. Greenland's loss effectively halves the total land area of the Common Market. The significance of this step is that it shows not just that there is now a legal precedent for negotiating withdrawal, but that it is politically and diplomatically possible to negotiate withdrawal.
The Greenland Government managed to get an attractive deal as a result of the process of negotiation and have secured the equivalent of £300 per annum for every man, woman and child in Greenland for each of the next 10 years, an agreement that is renewable at six-yearly intervals thereafter. One is tempted, although I shall not be so tempted for fear that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will draw me sharply to order, as you have done with previous speakers, to expand on the contrast between what the Greenlanders are getting for withdrawing from the Common Market and what we are continuing to pay to stay in it.

Mr. Eric Forth (Mid-Worcestershire): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is an interesting contrast between that line of argument and the fact that Socialist Spain believes that its people might benefit from coming into the EEC? Is not the weight of argument on that side, simply because of the number of people involved, much stronger?

Mr. Cook: We await with interest and eagerness the outcome of the negotiations between Spain and the Common Market and Portugal and the Common Market. One cannot but notice that within the past week an additional difficulty has been placed in the course of the successful conclusion of these negotiations. I have some sympathy, which I had better keep a fairly covert sympathy, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in view of your strictures, with the point made earlier by the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow). I suspect that when 1 January 1985 arrives, we shall find that Greenland has left the Common Market, but I shall be surprised if, on 1 January 1986, we find that Spain and Portugal have managed to get in.
The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) would be wise not to press his point too far because if he does he will find that the getting in of both countries depends entirely on the terms of getting in, and those terms depend entirely on sustaining the rickety structure of the common agricultural policy, which the hon. Gentleman, among other hon. Members, wishes to see knocked down.

Mr. Marlow: The hon. Gentleman, vis-a-vis Greenland, has raised the point of the accession of Spain and Portugal in 1986. He will understand the great significance of that, which is that any increase in own resources is justified only on the basis of that accession.

Mr. Cook: That is a valid and important point and one that we shall no doubt have an opportunity to examine when the House debates the increase in own resources. I think that the Government will be in great difficulty when that time comes in sustaining such a move as being necessary to pay for an enlargement that looks unlikely to happen by the date of the increase in own resources.
The hon. Member for Southend, East raised a matter that concerns me, that of enforcement. It is undoubtedly the case that what prompted the Greenland people to vote, by an adequate majority, to withdraw from the Common


Market was not the fisheries regime but the country's frustration at being unable to police and enforce the fisheries regime, and its clear perception that the fisheries regime was flagrantly and frequently violated by other countries that were ostensibly its partners in the Common Market.
The House should have some sympathy with that point of view because we experienced similar problems and discrimination ourselves. The hon. Member for Southend, East made the comparison with the steel regime, but it is not necessary to look at any other regime besides the fisheries regime. It has adequate illustration that we are experiencing the same difficulty in obtaining enforcement and adherence to the fisheries agreement that the Greenlanders have experienced in the past five years.
For example, only two years ago one of our partners in the Common Market claimed extra restitutions on the export of a volume of mackerel caught in British waters that exceeded its annual quota, and obtained a subsidy from the Common Market on the export of that volume although it plainly, in claiming that sum, was admitting to having broken the quota agreement. The hon. Member for Southend, East made the point that it appears that there is only one other country in the Common Market that is even attempting to impose milk quotas. We, as one of the two countries respecting the agreement on milk quotas, might ask ourselves why it is that the agreement has not been more adequately enforced.
Against that background, we must have some sympathy with the considerations that have moved the people of Greenland. Here, I come to the point raised by the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. Proctor). He asked whether the Queen would be sending a message of congratulation and felicitation to the Greenlanders on their withdrawal from the Common Market. As I understand it, the Government's position, to use the term that they employed on the last occasion that the House debated the matter, is that they respect the decision of the Greenlanders. I feel that it would be desirable to go beyond that. The Opposition understand their position and wishes, and we wish them well in the brave experiment on which they have embarked. We shall be watching closely to see how they prosper in their new, independent state.

Mr. John David Taylor: This brief debate is important to the United Kingdom because it makes it clear that a precedent has been created. The people of one member nation within the EEC can, by their own decision, withdraw from membership of the Community. It is an interesting precedent, which will be noted throughout the nation.
One specific point arises from the departure of Greenland from the Community, to which I should like to draw the attention of the Minister. It is the weird constitutional relationship that Greenland had with Denmark. Originally one thought that Denmark and Greenland had joined together in 1973 as one nation within the EEC, and that a certain number of seats within the European Assembly had been awarded to the nation of Denmark, including Greenland. Then it emerged that Greenland got one of those seats in the Assembly, which is not in itself a democratic institution. It is certainly not elected on the basis of one man, one vote, because a few thousand voters in Luxembourg have six seats, while 40

million voters in the United Kingdom have 81 seats. Likewise, a few thousand voters in Greenland had only one seat.
Now, Greenland is leaving the EEC and can do so separately from Denmark. What is happening to the one seat allocated to Greenland? Is it disappearing, or will Denmark now gain an extra seat? Will this seat go to the Arabs on the coast of Morocco, who apparently will now join the EEC with Spain? Is it going to the Azores, or could we give it to Gibraltar, which is the only part of Europe that is still not represented in the Assembly, for purely political reasons?

Mr. Rifkind: It is appropriate to welcome the warm words of appreciation for this order that have come from both sides of the House. It is pleasant to see such a rare degree of unanimity on matters affecting the European Community.
The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Mr. Deakins) and a number of other hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), referred to what they described as a precedent for the withdrawal of a country or part of a country from the European Community. What has happened on this occasion has been the requirement to renegotiate a treaty. The order is the consequence of negotiations which involved the unanimous agreement of all the member states, and it will require the ratification of all the member states. That is the appropriate way in which to deal with such matters.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr Taylor) raised a number of detailed points. He asked for an assurance that Greenland would have unimpeded access to the European Community for its own fishery products. That matter is dealt with specifically in article 1 of the protocol agreed earlier this year, which gives Greenland equivalent access to the Community for its own fishery products, to take account of the right that the Community will continue to exercise in Greenland waters. My hon Friend also asked—as did the hon. Member for Livingston whether there were safeguards as regards the enforcement of the Community quota arrangements in Greenland waters, given the difficulties which Greenland has faced in the past. I refer my hon. Friend and the hon. Gentleman to articles 3 and 5 of the agreement on fisheries between the Community and Greenland. Article 3 states:
The Community shall notify the Greenland authorities of the name, registration numbers and other essential characteristics of fishing vessels which may be authorised to fish within the area of jurisdiction of Greenland.
Article 5 states:
The authorities responsible for Greenland may take, within their area of jurisdiction, such measures as are necessary to ensure compliance with the provisions.
Such measures would presumably involve the Danish navy, because of Greenland's continuing association with Denmark in matters of external relations.
My hon. Friend also asked about the implications of Greenland's withdrawal from. Euratom. Membership of Euratom has not involved any obligation to mine uranium. It has simply required that any uranium that might be, mined should be shared with and made available to other members of the Community. That particular obligation will no longer apply to Greenland. Greenland will be free to determine what mining it wishes to engage in.
My hon. Friend and other hon. Members also referred to Greenland's proposed status as one of the overseas


countries and territories. Certain questions were asked about the implications of that status. My hon. Friend sought to suggest that there was some significance in the fact that French Guyana enjoyed certain advantages deriving from OCT status which are not available to the territory which he described as British Guyana. As the House will know, there is no longer any territory which can be referred to as British Guyana. There is an independent republic of Guyana. It is an independent state within the Commonwealth. French Guyana on the other hand, is still administered as part of France and has therefore, to be treated in a distinctive way.
In general terms, Greenland will continue in future to enjoy the rights available to other countries of OCT status—not only the French territory to which my hon. Friend referred but also a substantial number of British territories including Bermuda, the Falkland Islands and various other islands around the world.
Despite its membership of the OCT group of countries, Greenland will not be entitled to benefit from the European development fund. Greenland has a relatively high income per capita compared with most developing countries. It was, therefore, agreed that it would be inappropriate that Greenland should have access to a fund intended for Third world developing countries. There is a precedent for that decision. Brunei does not have access to the fund either, although classed as an OCT country.

Dr. Alan Glyn: What will happen to the seats of the representatives from Greenland in the EEC? Will those vacancies revert to Denmark?

Mr. Rifkind: The right hon. Member for Strangford (Mr. Taylor) raised the same question. When the allocation for Denmark in the European Parliament was determined, the total population of Denmark was taken into account. Although Greenland will no longer be associated with Denmark for the purposes of the European Parliament—I believe that the total population of Greenland is only about 100,000——

Mr. Cook: It is 45,000.

Mr. Rifkind: It is even less than I had suggested. Denmark's overall entitlement to seats, therefore, will not be affected It has always been for Denmark to decide how to allocate its seats, just as Parliament decides how to allocate seats among the various parts of the United Kingdom.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: The hon. Gentleman may, inadvertently, have misled the House about the circumstances in which the United Kingdom and three other states came to have 81 seats instead of 80, which was the original allocation. In Northern Ireland only, under an agreement arrived at by a previous Administration, there was to be election by proportional representation. That required three seats. An additional seat, therefore, was given to the United Kingdom by the

EEC, which, of course, also gave an additional seat to the three other countries with parity. It is not strictly correct to say that the EEC has not influenced the internal distribution of seats in part of one of the component nations.

Mr. Rifkind: The right hon. Gentleman has made a valid point, which I unreservedly accept.
There will be no change in Denmark's own representation, and the Danish Government may make their own arrangements about the allocation of the seats. They will remain entitled to their present allocation on the basis of the population of metropolitan Denmark.
Speaking on behalf of the Opposition, the hon. Member for Livingston suggested that Greenland had achieved a very good deal in that it was being given £15 million to leave the Community. That is not an accurate description of what has happened. The £15 million is not compensation for leaving the Community. It is a payment specifically in respect of the access which the Community will continue to have to Greenland waters. The arrangement is very similar to arrangements already existing between the Community and many third countries, whereby a sum of money is paid in return for access for Community fishing vessels. Greenland will, of course, continue to have access to the Community for its own fishing products.

Mr. Cook: Could the Minister explain what financial compensation the United Kingdom receives for having granted the Common Market access to British fisheries?

Mr. Rifkind: That is a somewhat foolish question. We are dealing with the withdrawal of Greenland and the Community's entitlement—which it was anxious to maintain—to fish in Greenland waters. If the Community wishes to fish in waters which are not part of the Community, it is right and proper that there should be some quid pro quo. The hon. Gentleman may speculate about the implications of that for other territories that might wish to withdraw from the Community, but such speculations are not relevant to the order.
Until now, Greenland has received £19 million from the European development fund. Overall, therefore, less money will be spent on Greenland after its withdrawal.

Mr. Marlow: Many of my hon. Friends are worried about the loss of territory involved in Greenland's withdrawal. When does my hon. Friend believe that we are likely to see any new territories—such as Spain and Portugal—joining the Community?

Mr. Rifkind: Negotiations with Spain and Portugal are at an advanced stage, and we hope that the proposed date of January 1986 for their accession will be adhered to.
I hope that I have responded to the points which have been raised. I commend the order to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,
That the draft European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (Change in Status of Greenland) Order 1984, which was laid before this House on 22nd October, be approved.

Data Protection

Queen's Recommendation having been signified.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Waddington): I beg to move,
That the Data Protection Registrar shall, from 20th September 1984, be paid a salary which shall be the same as that payable from time to time to a Deputy Secretary of the Civil Service.
The motion needs only a brief instroduction. The need for it is found in paragraph 3 of schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act 1984. The Act provides for the appointment of a data protection registrar who is to be paid such salary and pension
as may be specified by a resolution of the House of Commons.
The money is provided out of the Consolidated Fund.
Many hon. Members will be aware that the first data protection registrar, Mr. Eric Howe, has now been appointed by Her Majesty under letters patent and took up post on 20 September. Although Mr. Howe has already started work and has set about the formidable task of planning for and setting up his office with diligence and enthusiasm, he has not yet received remuneration as there is no authority to make payments out of the Consolidated Fund until the House has set the level of his salary and an effective resolution has been made. Because of the summer recess, it has not been possible to proceed with this before and we must ensure that arrangements are made to pay Mr. Howe as soon as possible. Hon. Members will see that the resolution is backdated to 20 September in conformity with paragraph 3(3) of schedule 2.
We believe that the registrar's salary should be the same as that which is payable from time to time to a deputy secretary in the Civil Service. Mr. Howe has said that he would be content with such remuneration. For the record, the current salary of a deputy secretary is £35,278, and it will increase to £36,500 from 1 November. The registrar's pension arrangements must also be fixed by a resolution of the House.
In accordance with the normal arrangements for an appointment such as this, Mr. Howe has been given two basic options. He may either choose an arrangement on the basis of his existing pension or be pensioned by analogy with the principal Civil Service pension scheme. He is still considering the matter. As is often the case in such circumstances, it is taking a little time to work out all of the details of the two options. We are therefore not yet able to propose a resolution concerning Mr. Howe's pension, but that should not prevent us from setting his salary now. Once his pension arrangements have been sorted out, a separate resolution will be proposed.
I believe that the proposed salary is fair remuneration for what will be a difficult and onerous job. It is acceptable to the newly appointed registrar and I therefore commend the motion to the House.

Dr. John Marek: I am somewhat surprised that the registrar has accepted his post. I suppose that the House will have to pass the motion—if we do not we might have a resignation. If we halved his salary he might not be prepared to do the job. I think that £35,000 is a lot of money and doubt whether many people are worth that much. I should be much happier if we paid him somewhat less. The Minister told us in the Committee stage of what is now the Data Protection Act 1984 that the Government

would look for a person of high calibre to fill the post. Salary scales in Britain demand that we pay such a person about £35,000 a year. However, I am not happy that the public must pay so much to get a person of high calibre.
I should like to examine the duties of the registrar to ascertain whether he should receive this salary. His duties are set out in section 36. Section 36(1) provides:
It shall be the duty of the Registrar so to perform his functions under this Act as to promote the observance of the data protection principles by data users and persons carrying on computer bureaux.
The Act lists eight data protection principles. They do not involve matters that the registrar will be able to clear up after his mail on a weekday morning. It is a lengthy business that demands much concentration. The Government originally said that the registrar's office would employ 20 staff. I read in The Times of 17 October that more than 40 are to be recruited. The Government are already 100 per cent. out. It is now sinking in that data protection is not a trivial matter and that it will require much expertise.
If the registrar is to be paid such a large salary he must do the job properly. There are 200,000 computer systems that hold personal data to be registered. The registrar must do that properly. He cannot merely respond to applications for registration by return of post and without investigation. I suspect that that will happen initially but if we are to pay someone so much he should scrutinise the systems that are being registered to establish whether they pass the data protection principles. I am sure that in perhaps 98 per cent. of cases there will be no problem. The problem is to and the 1 per cent. or 2 per cent. of sharks or fly-by-nights. A good registrar will earn his money by spotting that 1 per cent. or 2 per cent.
Section 36(2) provides:
The Registrar may consider any complaint that any of the data protection principles or any provision of this Act has been or is being contravened … and where the Registrar considers any such complaint he shall notify the complainant of the result of his consideration and of any action which he proposes to take.
If the registrar does his job properly he will not simply write letters saying, "Dear Sir/Madam, I have seen your complaint. It is very interesting but unfortunately I have neither the staff, nor the facilities nor the capability to do anything about it." If that happened we should not pass the motion, as we would be throwing money out of the window. The registrar should have the facilities to investigate complaints, to make recommendations and to put things right.
Section 36(3) provides:
The Registrar shall arrange for the dissemination in such form and manner as he considers appropriate of such information as it may appear to him expedient to give to the public about the operation of this Act
That function could be performed cursorily. The registrar could say that the register is available in his office in Manchester, and that is it. It would be nice if the registrar took this duty seriously and perhaps thought about making the register available in public libraries. If he could not: do that an abridged version would do.
Section 36(4) provides:
It shall be the duty of the Registrar, where he considers it appropriate to do so, to encourage trade associations or other bodies representing data users to prepare, and to disseminate to their members, codes of practice for guidance in complying with the data protection principles.
Many bodies are now considering codes of practice, not on a statutory, but on a voluntary basis. There will be many different codes of practice and some will apply to


only one firm. Again, it is not a simple matter to look at complicated documents to see whether those codes of practice are fair to data users and subjects—data users, subjects and people working in computer bureaux will be involved. If the registrar is to earn his salary he must do that job properly. He must scrutinise the minutiae of the codes of practice to ensure that they satisfy the data protection principles and him, as registrar, that they are the types of codes which should be operated.
Finally section 36(5) states:
The Registrar shall annually lay before each House of Parliament a general report on the performance of his functions under this Act".
If he is to earn his large salary, I hope that he will not be muzzled. I hope that people in Government Departments or the police will not deter him from mentioning certain matters because, for example, they affect national security. Clearly, if matters affect national security they cannot come before the House, but in marginal cases people may try it on. I hope that the registrar will be independent, make up his own mind and be fearless in deciding what he will report to Parliament. If he wishes to report a matter to Parliament, I hope that he will not be dissuaded from doing so.
If we are to pay such a high salary and have a person of high calibre, we must give him the facilities necessary for him to show his high calibre and to exercise it in the interests of the country.

Mr. Paddy Ashdown: I shall not detain the House for long because we want to move on to other matters. The job of registrar is important. I share the reservations of the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) about having to pay such a large salary from public funds, and agree that that does not mean that we should regard the job as being anything less than one of considerable importance.
The Minister knows of my deep and severe reservations about the Bill. We opposed it on Third Reading because we believe that it was inadequate for the tasks that would have to be done. Therefore, it comes as no surprise to me that the Government's original figure for the number of people needed to run the registrar's office has already been doubled. In due course it will have to be considerably increased beyond the current figure of 40. In that sense the job will be larger, and the post will grow considerably in importance.
The sheer inadequacy of the Act means that the burden which rests on the registrar will be greater. He will have to use his judgment about matters which contravene, not the detail of the Act, which is inadequate, but the spirit behind the concept of data protection. Not only will his staff inevitably increase but the Government may come under pressure as the inadequacy of the legislation becomes evident. They may have to think about amending the legislation sooner than expected, or to expand the job of the registrar. The inadequacies of the Bill and the job of the registrar are already becoming evident in ways which were mentioned on Third Reading.
I draw the Minister's attention to the article in Computing of 13 September 1984. It points out that councils are complaining that the Act is becoming largely unworkable and that the resources which the Government

are giving them so that they will conform with the Bill and not come to the attention of the registrar are wholly inadequate for that task. That complaint does not come only from Left-wing councils—far from it. The chief complainer is Birmingham city council. The assistant city treasurer, Jeff Pipe, said that the sum received to enable the council to conform to the Act in such a way as not to fall under the scrutiny of the registrar "is a laughable figure". The article further points out that the Act is proving extremely difficult to operate and does not clearly define its objectives.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Paul Dean): Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but he is straying wide of the subject. We are dealing with the registrar's salary. It would be appropriate for him to make passing references to the registrar's duties in relation to his salary.

Mr. Ashdown: I hear your admonition and accept it, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The size of the post of registrar will grow and therefore we must have someone of seniority. The weight which will rest on his shoulders will grow considerably in future. I am glad that the Government attach importance to that. That is shown by the seniority of the gentleman whom they chose to fill the post. Although I may be unhappy about the total sum, for those reasons I agree with the Government that the seniority of the person reflects the duties that will come to rest on the registrar in due course.

Mr. Denis Howell: I have a growing incomprehension about the attitude of the alliance parties on this matter and, indeed, on other matters. The Social Democratic party voted for the Second Reading of the Data Protection Bill and played a constructive role in Committee but on Third Reading voted against the Bill—the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) certainly did—which his colleagues in Committee had said was acceptable.

Mr. Ashdown: rose——

Mr. Howell: I shall give way in a moment but I have not yet finished with the hon. Gentleman. We are used to his peregrinations and the fact that he rides roughshod both in the House and at Liberal conferences. He throws to the winds all the logic, understanding and political acumen that we have come to expect from generations of Liberal politicians. We do not see those qualities in the heir apparant to the leadership of the Liberal party. After his antics on the Bill, I am glad to say that I doubt whether he will make that position.

Mr. Ashdown: The right hon. Gentleman is repeating the attack he made on me on Third Reading. On that occasion he was not courteous enough to give way to me and to substantiate his ridiculous allegations. Will the right hon. Gentleman read again the speech made by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) on Third Reading? He said that if certain amendments were not made the Labour party could not vote for the Bill. Although those amendments were not made, the right hon. Gentleman called for a party vote in favour of the Bill and succeeded in persuading only five members of his party to vote with him in favour of the Bill. The rest sat on their hands or were conveniently absent.


It was a disgraceful performance and a reversal of an original commitment, which he could not even bring his own party to support.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I hope that we can now get back to the straight and narrow and discuss the salary to be paid to the registrar.

Mr. Howell: There was no intellectual challenge in that interruption that need concern me now. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I do not make attacks on him—just discerning observations.
I do not object to the numbers of staff that we have been told are being recruited; indeed, in this case the Government are redeeming their undertakings to the House. The Minister said in Committee and on Report that if it was found to be necessary to increase the staff beyond that which he believed was appropriate the Government would not hesitate to authorise adequate staff for this office. I assume that that is what they have done, and since we urged him to do so it would be extremely churlish if I did not recognise it now.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) for drawing attention to many of the matters to which we attached great importance in Committee, and my hon. Friend played a constructive role during the passage of the Bill. As he said, the registrar must be someone of the highest calibre — a man of independence and integrity—if he is to protect the liberties and the private information of our people. That is his most important charge in an age of an ever-increasing amount of data held on computers that can affect our citizens. Throughout our discussions hon. Members on both sides of the House mentioned that growing problem and the worries of individuals that no private and confidential information should get into the wrong hands.
We may have got it right. I share one view of the hon. Member for Yeovil: the Opposition would not have approached the problem in this way. Nevertheless, the Government chose to produce the Bill based on the principles contained within it.
The first task of Mr. Eric Howe will be to ensure that the principles of the Act are upheld by everyone, whatever the circumstances. That in itself is a formidable task. He must also oversee the codes of practice with which we became familiar during the passage of the Bill, not least in medicine and the social services. The registrar must also consider employment data, which worried us. Where there are exemptions, such as in the case of the police and the security services—we understand that and we debated it fully—he must ensure on behalf of the authorities that the security of the realm is properly maintained, and must ensure that there is adequate explanation and safeguards to a citizen whose access to data information is denied on the grounds of national security.
As the registrar must carry out all those tasks, he must be properly compensated. It is for the Government to judge the correct payment, although I should have thought that,

having regard to the sophisticated duties of this officer, his proper compensation could have been related to that of judges and senior counsel, who have similar responsibilities. I have little information about salaries in private industry or in the judiciary at that level, but I assume that the Government have considered everything and believe that this salary is adequate. If so, I accept their judgment.
I believe passionately, as should all hon. Members, that public service should not be devalued in terms of remuneration, as we in the House often devalue our services to the nation when we deal with such matters. I welcome the fact that his salary will be fixed to a known appointment in the Civil Service—in this case the rank of deputy secretary. For such appointments, and in relation to Members' salaries, we should be consistent in deciding the appropriate rank in the Civil Service to which a salary should be linked. That would remove from the area of public debate much of what I believe to be the unnecessary friction that occurs. It is another reason for supporting the order.
All that it remains for me to do on behalf of the Opposition is to welcome Mr. Eric Howe's appointment and to wish him well. He has a formidable task to safeguard the liberties of our subjects and the rights of the nation, but I am sure that he will do so. It should be recorded that he will do so with the blessing of hon. Members on both sides of the House.

Mr. Waddington: With the leave of the House, I shall reply briefly to the debate. All those who have spoken in the debate agree that this is an important Act of Parliament and that the registrar must perform important functions. Whenever we referred to the registrar in Committee we said that we were determined to appoint a man of high calibre and a person of integrity who could fulfil these onerous duties with distinction.
The motion deals only with the appropriate salary and £35,000 is a lot of money, but we looked for a man of high calibre and it was necessary to pay a fairly generous salary to get such a person. To put the salary into perspective, may I say that Mr. Howe earned £31,000 as the deputy director of the National Computing Centre. Often during our debates we compared the duties to be performed by the registrar with the duties performed by, for instance, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration. I should remind the House that the latter earns £44,000 a year. His salary is on the level of that of a permanent secretary, whereas Mr. Howe's salary will be on the level of that of a deputy secretary.
With those few words, I once again commend the order to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That the Data Protection Registrar shall, from 20th September 1984, be paid a salary which shall be the same as that payable from time to time to a Deputy Secretary of the Civil Service.

Procedure

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That this House takes note of the First Report of the Select Committee on Procedure (House of Commons Paper No. 570) and agrees with the recommendations contained in paragraph 14.[Mr. Biffen.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Paul Dean): Mr. Speaker has asked me to suggest to the House that as part of the debate on motion No. 6 on procedure, it would be convenient also to discuss motion No. 7:

(1) That during the next Session Mr. Speaker may announce at the commencement of public business that, because of the number of Members wishing to speak in a debate on one of the matters specified in paragraph (2) of this Order, he will call Members either between six o'clock and ten minutes before eight o'clock or between seven o'clock and ten minutes before nine o'clock to speak for not more than ten minutes; and whenever Mr. Speaker has made such an announcement he may, between those hours, direct any Member who has spoken for ten minutes in such a debate to resume his seat forthwith.
(2) This Order shall apply to debates on:
(a) the second reading of public bills;
(b) matters selected under paragraph (2) of Standing Order No. 6 (Arrangement of public business) for consideration on allotted Opposition days; and
(c) motions in the name of a Minister of the Crown.
That this Order be a Standing Order of the House until the end of the next Session of Parliament.
Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment to motion No. 7 in the name of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James).

Sir Peter Emery: This short debate and the motion before the House arise from the first report of your Procedure Committee, Mr. Deputy Speaker, which not surprisingly is entitled "Short Speeches". I am grateful especially to the Leader of the House for arranging for this debate so rapidly after the publication of the report. The Committee is also pleased that the Government have considered it sensible to propose the exact recommendations of the Committee for adoption by the House. Those recommendations can be seen in the motion on the Order Paper.
The trials and tribulations through which ordinary Back-Bench Members must go in trying to catch Mr. Speaker's eye in major debates is hard to understand by anyone unless that person has been a Member of this honourable House. The number of speeches torn up, deposited in the waste paper basket and never delivered because of lack of time in debates is more than legion. All this can be even more frustrating for the new Member—more frustrating perhaps than unrequited love for the young courtesan, although some of us may no longer fit into the category of young courtesan.
I wish to deal with one criticism which I have heard which suggests that these recommendations are another attempt to gag Members of Parliament. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Indeed, exactly the opposite are the facts. Paragraph 14 on page ix of the report clearly sets outthe position. It states:
Our proposals are designed to seek ways of ensuring that as many Members as possible participate in debates whilst not preventing individual Members, for whatever reason, from having the opportunity to make longer speeches if they consider it necessary.
We accept immediately that this measure is limited and will mean that only two or four more Members will be called in the normal all-day major debates. None the less,

we consider that this is worth while and believe that it will be particularly so for those Members who get called. Therefore, the Committee started by looking at the facts.
Consideration of the length of speeches has been given many times by many different Committees. After the last major review of procedures in 1977–78, the House accepted as an order, by a large majority, implementing an experiment that during the Second Reading of Bills Mr. Speaker might be able to apply a 10-minute limit on speeches between 7 pm and 9 pm. However, because there was no permanently appointed Procedure Committee, as there is at present, no assessment was ever made of the success or otherwise of that experiment, and it duly lapsed.
When the present Committee was set up by the House, its terms of reference specifically asked us to consider among other things
the application of time limits on speeches".
I am particularly grateful to my colleagues on the Committee for enabling us to deal with this inquiry promptly. The Committee is indebted to Viscount Tonypandy, our previous Speaker, for his evidence and to Mr. Speaker for his informal advice.
Our proposals in the report allow us to build on the previous experiment in a way which we believe will command the widest measure of support in the House and which will be practicable. In many instances our proposals are similar to the previous experiment in the following ways—the restriction of speeches to 10 minutes during a two-hour period would be triggered by an announcement by Mr. Speaker that in the light of the number of members wanting to speak, the 10-minute rule would apply. This limited restriction would apply to only part of the debate, and paragraph 8 of the report sets out the arguments as to why this would actually be for two hours only. It would apply on Mondays to Thursdays.
We held this view, wishing to stay close to the previous experiment and believing that Private Members' Bills and time was a rather different ball game which could be considered by the Committee when it reviewed the success of our limited recommendations. These recommendations are put forward in a new Parliament for an experimental period of one year.
Our proposals this time move on from the previous experiment in that they apply not just to Second Reading debates but to full-day debates on Opposition Days and to substantive Government motions. In other words, they would apply to nearly all the major debates on the Floor of the House. They give Mr. Speaker the option of deciding whether the 10-minute restriction should apply between 6 pm and 8 pm or between 7 pm and 9 pm.
If the House approves the motion tonight, it is the Committee's intention to assess the working of the rule as to its time of operation and the range of debates to which it applies during the current session and then to make permanent recommendations to the House.
Although modest, our proposals go some way towards meeting the demand for a greater sense of fairness in debates in which many Members wish to take part. We must surely recognise that even with the slightly limited attendance tonight ours is, by world standards, an unusually large parliamentary assembly. It is not realistic to expect all those who wish to be called in every debate to be able to speak; but we believe that our proposals will lead to some increase in the number of Members who are called in the major debates in which they wish to participate.
Our report makes it plain that we do not propose that rigid time limits should apply to all speeches. There are some who would like to see that, but we considered it essential to retain the traditional virtues of debate in this place which are admired in many other parliamentary democracies. Our proposals still safeguard the position of those Members who wish, for whatever reason—perhaps because they are spokesmen of other parties, groups, regions or Committees, or because they have a particular constituency or personal interest or a distinctive and complicated case to put forward—to speak for longer than 10 minutes during specific debates.
Paragraphs 11 and 12 of our report also refer to the length of speeches of Ministers, Front Bench spokesmen and Privy Councillors. There was a strong enough feeling to record that when the 10-minute rule is to apply, all speakers—Back-Bench and Front-Bench and Privy Councillors—should look to shortening their speeches in the interests of the House as a whole. In these instances my personal view is that Ministers should always instruct their Departments to prepare speeches of 20 to 25 minute length at a maximum, thereby allowing, even with interruptions, a speech of no longer than 30 minutes. Ministers may not realise how popular this could make them.
As I recommend this fairly modest proposal—in your absence, Mr. Speaker, I thanked you for the advice that you gave to the Committee—I ask all hon. Members to realise how much can actually be said in 10 minutes if one really tries. I am glad to say that I have now spoken for only nine minutes and 10 seconds.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: rose——

Mr. Donald Anderson: These recommendations, though modest, have been carefully considered and are well worth while for an experimental period. I fully support them.

The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): It might be for the convenience of the House if I intervene at this stage and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery) and those who served with him on the Procedure Committee for this report.
I start with a belief that a high level of frustration and dissatisfaction is inevitable for all who come to this House and take part in its proceedings. I believe that that would even have been experienced by previous generations of parliamentarians, many of whom came here more in a spectating role and less in a participating role than is true of this House of Commons. I also have an instinctive hostility to anything that tries to impose on our proceedings any more rigidity than we already possess.
Therefore, it is in that sense of agnosticism that I look at the report. I welcome its modesty, which has been underlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton, and, in particular, the emphasis that it is experimental and flexible and leave much to your discretion, Mr. Speaker.
It is in that cautious sense that I recommend it in a personal capacity, because this is truly a House of Commons occasion and, if there is to be a vote, it should be so seen.
None the less, I do not wish the modesty of my welcome to detract from the fact that I believe that if we grasp the fact that many speeches are considerably enhanced by their brevity, we may, by one way and another, improve the general quality of debate in the Chamber.
I want to conclude on a point which I am sure that the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) was trying to establish when he sought to intervene. Any speech which is judged net of interruptions is possibly a speech that much diminished in its attractiveness to the House. Of course, it shows that it is foolish to have any preconceptions in terms of arithmetical times.
Above all, I must warn the House about what I suspect is a modish fashion for the length of ministerial speeches. I have no objection to ministerial speeches being shortened. I am sure that that would help us all. But once Ministers are given the protection that they need not give way because they have to abide by the convention that they will only speak for a certain time, we take from the House a most charming dimension of parliamentary blood sports—the ministerial speech coming adrift under interrogation. In this situation there is clearly both baby and bath water and I am sure that the House would like to view it in that way.

Mr. Peter Shore: Like the Leader of the House, I approach the matter with a good deal of agnosticism. Certainly, I am no mad enthusiast for the proposition that is before us. Indeed, if it were not couched in terms of being a one-year experiment of a rather limited kind, I am rot at all sure that I would be speaking for it at all. Why? The argument is fairly obvious. The argument in favour of limiting people to 10 minutes is basically that more people can speak. Nobody objects to that statement of purpose. That is precisely the way in which the detailed propositions in paragraph 14 are introduced. It says:
Our proposals are designed to seek ways of ensuring that as many Members as possible participate in debates".
However, there are other purposes in debate as well. They are that there should be a good debate, not an artificial debate, and that someone who has something worth saying should not be stopped and artificially restricted in the saying of it. It may be—not always, but it may be—that on the particular occasion that a Back Bencher speaks between the hours of 7 pm and 9 pm he has something of burning importance to say that should be heard. So have no doubt that there is a trade-off here. We shall lose something. We should be prepared to watch the experiment with that clearly in mind.

Mr. Eric Forth (Mid-Worcestershire): Will the right hon. Gentleman concede that another powerful reason in favour of the argument is that the restriction of speeches might discourage incoherent rambling and self-indulgent contributions and would encourage people to structure their speech in advance and produce a tight, taut argument?

Mr. Shore: I cannot be certain about that. It depends very much on how right hon. and hon. Members approach the question of addressing the House and with what seriousness and concentration they turn their minds to what they have to say. No automatic assumption can be made that, because Members have a limited time in which to speak, they will make better speeches.
Having paraded my doubts, I must say that, like others, I think that a certain amount can be said in 10 minutes. The hon. Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery) who introduced the debate, nicely and neatly kept within the 10-minute self-imposed rule to good effect. I have not even bothered to look at the time and hon. Members saw how happily I gave way. But if I were self-conscious and worried about the time, that would be a draw back and I might well say precisely what a Minister might be tempted to say if he were so restricted, as the Leader of the House reminded us—that I have not the time.

Mr. John Home Robertson: Hon. Members do that anyway.

Mr. Shore: Yes, people do it anyway, but the temptation will be all the greater. Therefore, the spontaneity of debate is affected.
As I said, a lot can be said in 10 minutes. The hon. Member for Honiton has shown us that and my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) showed us even more succinctly. The Leader of the House did not exactly encroach beyond his 10 minutes, and I shall certainly do the same.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin) who reminded me that the Gettysburg address takes exactly three minutes to read and I think that I would be right in saying that even the sermon on the mount can be got through in 12 minutes. Therefore, it is not an intolerable burden to impose 10-minute speeches on Members between the hours of 7 pm and 9 pm or 6 pm and 8 pm, according to the Speaker's guidance. I can only say that we must watch—and I am glad that we shall do so on this occasion—the experiment, monitor it and report back.

Mr. Robert Rhodes James: At an appropriate moment I shall move an amendment which extends the proposal of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to Fridays.
I fully appreciate the remarks made about the high level of frustration. My amendment is logical, intelligent and sensible and, therefore, will perhaps not commend itself to the vast majority of the House, particularly because my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, when talking about Mr. Gladstone this week, referred to 1886 rather than 1881.
One should not underestimate the frustration and difficulties that Back Benchers have. Last Friday, which is supposed to be an easy day, 40 hon. Members wished to speak in a debate on higher education. When we have public Bills and other contentious issues, many hon. Members also wish to speak briefly.
My proposal will ensure only that between the hours of 11.30 am and 1 pm on Fridays nine Back Benchers will have the opportunity to address the House. It is a modest proposal which follows on from the proposals of my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery). It is important and it will give to that minority, the Back Benchers of the House, the opportunity to express their views on major issues.

Mr. A. J. Beith: I am attracted by the suggestion of the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr.

Rhodes James), knowing full well that the discretion which you have, Mr. Speaker, in applying the limits, could readily be applied so that it was not allowed to intervene in cherished traditions on the way in which private Members' and other business is handled.
As the hon. Gentleman said, many important debates take place on Fridays to which exactly the same problems apply. Those problems, on Fridays and other days, reflect to some extent on the business management of the House. There have clearly been many occasions when those responsible for the presentation and timing of its business have given insufficient time to major issues and, conversely, well-known occasions on which a large amount of time has been allowed and hon. Members have been sought, even press-ganged, into taking part extensively in debates which need never have lasted as long. We all know that that happens and we should all apply ourselves to trying to ensure that the time of the House is used more wisely.
I am with the Leader of the House in his defence of the right—nay, the necessity—of Ministers not to be under too much restriction of time in their opening of debates. I support the general admonition of Front Bench speakers in the report, but it is important that they should be subjected to intervention and not be able to avoid that pressure. That is partly because there are times when the sheer weakness of their case should be exposed and partly because when presenting, for example, the Second Reading of a Bill, there are details and problems about the Bill that should be explained as the speech goes on and on which hon. Members can press the Minister for a fuller explanation. Such interventions often avoid the necessity to make a speech later in the debate. On many occasions I have felt that a ministerial speech of 45 or 50 minutes has been fully justified.
I direct my criticism at the Opposition Front Bench, although not in any unpleasant or even partisan spirit. On many occasions, Opposition Front Bench speakers have been under the mistaken impression that to speak at length strengthens the effectiveness of their case. They speak at great length even on statements. On many recent occasions a ministerial statement of three or four minutes has been followed by a counter-statement of many times that length. It has been considerably less, rather than more, effective, and has probably led to a number of Opposition Back Benchers being excluded from the exchanges. That also happens during debates. That admonition should be heeded by the Opposition Front Bench.
The report quite properly recognises the position of those who must speak occasionally for more than 10 minutes. For example, the spokesman for a minority party may wish to present a case as fully as the case presented by the Opposition spokesman. There is no logical reason why, if the Labour party presents a case that requires 30 minutes, the Liberal, SDP or some other minority party may take only 10 minutes to deploy their case. It may be that, on occasion, we might make more effective use of 10 minutes than of 30 minutes. However, the Committee rightly recognised that the presentation of a view by a party or a Select Committee may take more than 10 minutes. That is the purpose of your discretion, Mr. Speaker. You can make provision for that. However, an hon. Member may wish to speak from the Liberal Bench between 7 o'clock and 9 o'clock, and it would be proper to impose a 10-minute limit. I am glad that the Committee recognised that.


It would be wrong if the House wished to go further along that road and preserve a pattern of debate that is not the pattern of debate taking place in the country. We must not suggest that a Government view takes 30 or 35 minutes to deploy, that the Labour Front Bench view will take the same time but that any other views, from whatever quarter, must be expressed in a much shorter time. I am grateful to the Committee for not taking that view.
In the report of the proceedings of the Committee there is an account of a division that carries with it the seeds of future trouble. Against my advice, the Committee decided to defer the consideration of Opposition time until it had conducted other business. Inevitably, that will mean that it will be some time before we come to the contentious issue of how Opposition time is divided. We shall shortly embark upon another Session and that issue is bound to raise its head. The Labour party has 19 days of Opposition time at its disposal. During the past two Sessions, it has offered one day to the alliance, thus taking for itself eighteen-nineteenths of the available time. By no standard is that just, reasonable, or a recognition of the debate taking place in the country. I shall not pursue that argument tonight as there will be many other occasions to do so. However, I regret that the Committee did not give the House the benefit of its advice at an early stage in this Parliament. It would have saved the House a lot of trouble had it done so.

Mr. Richard Ottaway: When I came to the House last year from the sanity of the outside world, I was somewhat amazed by the set of rules for debating in the Chamber. In the spirit of the debate, I shall keep my comments brief.
I support the reforms proposed by the Select Committee, but theydo not go far enough. The principle should be carried into other sectors of our procedures, such as Report stage, Third Reading, Committee stage and motions. We should try to outlaw two sorts of speech. One is the speech made by hon. Members whose brevity is not their strong point. There is an old saying that if one cannot say what one has to say in 10 minutes, one should write a book. During the proceedings on the Police and Criminal Evidence Bill on Monday, 21 Members spoke on racial discrimination in the space of 152 minutes, an average of seven minutes each. That established that it is possible to restrict speeches to 10 minutes, and the proposed rule would encourage more such debates.
The second speech that should be outlawed is the filibuster. I had the unpleasant experience of seeing the Nottinghamshire County Council Bill talked out, not on one evening but on three evenings. While I do not deny the right of anyone to use the rules to his advantage, that manner of proceeding misunderstands the objectives of this place. If someone is opposed to legislation, the remedy is through the ballot box, not the filibuster. It is worth noting that in the European Parliament anyone opposed to legislation has one and a half minutes speaking time for what it calls an explanation procedure.
For those reasons, I support the motion, but I hope that when the experiment is reviewed my points will be taken into account.

Mr. Hugh Brown: The hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Ottaway) is the only

speaker who has tried to give a reason for the introduction of a ten minutes rule. I am following a worthy precedent in taking up remarks made by the previous speaker. The trend in the House, especially among new Members, is to come to the Chamber with a well-researched, 10-minute speech that has been already handed out to the local press. While I recognise that that is part and parcel of the purpose of making a speech, it destroys the atmosphere of real debate when carried to excess.
I am a little quizzical about the magic figure of 10 minutes. I, too, am an agnostic about the whole purpose of the recommendation. Brevity is marvellous, provided it is in someone else's speech, and especially when waiting to make one's own speech. No one can match the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), and I shall not try to do so.
What is a long speech by a Back Bencher? I know that you, Mr. Speaker, have a direct interest in this debate. I do not think that there are many instances of long speeches after 6 o'clock or 7 o'clock. If a debate is interesting, hon. Members are queueing to join in. I am more concerned about the declining attendances in the Chamber. I do not understand the reason for the proposed change. Is it to allow one or two more hon. Members to contribute, or is it to improve the quality of the debate in the Chamber and, therefore, attract more Members?
It is not a bad thing to listen to someone else's speech. I do that regularly, and I find it interesting. I assume that the recommendation completely carries out the suggestion in paragraph 14 of the Select Committee report. I assume that it applies to all hon. Members, whether Privy Councillors or leaders of Opposition parties, and that it is indiscriminate if Mr. Speaker says that he is applying the rule to a particular debate. If that is so—I shall not be pressing this issue to a Division—it is difficult to oppose such a meek and mild suggestion that there should be an experiment for a year followed by a review. In any event, discretion will be with Mr. Speaker. In terms of fundamental changes being recommended, this is something of a non-event.
In my experience, some of the most interesting debates take place when there is a free vote or when the issue is regarded as a House of Commons matter. We see this evening one of the largest attendances that we are likely to witness in the Chamber at 7 o'clock. I do not think that there were as many Members present last night at the same time even for the debate on unemployment.
I do not welcome the proposition that is before us, but I accept it halfheartedly, if only because it is part of the process of trying to enhance the prestige of the Chamber. As discretion will rest with Mr. Speaker, I am happy to accept it.

Dr. Alan Glyn: I welcome the motion, although it does not go as far as the motion which I have had on the Order Paper for a long time. At least it will give the House the chance in the next year to assess how the recommended procedure works in practice. Of course, we should like to know whether it will apply to Privy Councillors. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery), the Chairman of the Committee, for raising the issue so quickly. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House on bringing


the matter before the House. I think that it will give Back-Bench Members a better chance to participate in our debates.
The motion which I have been placing on the Order Paper for a long time recommends that speeches should be confined to 15 minutes except by leave of the House, which would meet the point of the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore). If that provision were introduced, it would enable a Member with a particular interest, or who represented a particular faction in the House, to continue speaking for longer than 10 minutes if Mr. Speaker exercised his discretion accordingly. The issue would be left always to the discretion of Mr. Speaker. Perhaps that is something that we should consider in future.
My motion was considered when it appeared on the Order Paper in 1970 with more than 100 signatures. It was rejected, but I received a nice letter from the Chairman of the Committee which considered it. Throughout the years I have ensured that it has appeared on the Order Paper so that Members are made aware that there are ways of allowing more Members to speak in our debates. I am grateful to those who have supported it.
The words of Viscount Tonypandy were appropriate when he said that the procedures that we are discussing might help to remove some of the frustrations which Back Benchers suffer. It is especially important that such a system should be introduced when there is one party with a large majority, which means that its Members have a much more limited chance on a one-to-one basis of having their say.
I hope that the experiment will prove a success. If it does, I hope that it will be extended. If it is extended to all speakers at the discretion of Mr. Speaker, a Member who has a particular interest will be allowed to continue speaking by leave of the House. We would thus achieve the object of the 10-minute speech and exceptional circumstances would be met by the exercise of Mr. Speaker's discretion.

Mr. John Mc William: I have much enjoyed serving on the Procedure Committee under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery). It has been an enlightening experience and I am now much more informed about the way in which the House operates. I agree basically with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Brown). I have been motivated throughout by the desire not to see the rights of individual Members further eroded.
It has been alleged that if we readopted the earlier experimental procedure more Back Benchers would be able to participate in our debates. The Procedure Committee's report is directed to ascertaining whether that will happen in practice. It is unfortunate that when the previous experiment was conducted we were not in a position to compare like with like. We hope now to introduce an experiment that will enable us objectively to assess whether Members have more or less opportunity to have their say within the constraints that we are asking you, Mr. Speaker, wisely to apply. The proposition must surely commend itself to all hon. Members because we want objectively to make an assessment.
It is my instinct to defend the rights of Back Benchers. I want to defend the rights of all hon. Members and that has been the view of the Procedure Committee. The hon. Member for Honiton, the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) and I have expressed concern about hon. Members' rights. It has been alleged that the proposed limitation would enable more Back Benchers to participate in our debates and it is our desire to ascertain whether that is right.
The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) is not right in his assertion that the Labour Opposition have eighteen nineteenths of the Supply Days. The Labour party is not the only Opposition party in this place. There are Opposition parties other than the Social Democratic party and the Liberal party. The fact is that other Opposition parties have been allocated time. The previous Select Committee took that into account when it decided to reduce the number of Opposition days. I had the privilege of being a member of that Committee. Some of the Committee's other recommendations were not implemented and that reduction may not necessarily be entirely relevant in terms of what the House has seen fit to introduce. I do not detract from the argument of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, but I suggest that it is an issue that merits further consideration.
I ask all hon. Members to accept that the intention of all members of the Procedure Committee is to defend the rights of hon. Members from further erosion. It wants to ascertain whether those who advocate reducing the duration of speeches to 10 minutes are right or wrong.

Mr. Roger Freeman: I am not persuaded by the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery) or my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I make my brief contribution to this debate from the vantage point of a new Member. There are two reasons why I am not persuaded. The first relates to the quality of debate that exists at present and that which is likely to exist under this new rule. My hon. Friend the Member for Honiton argued that, with this new rule, we might get in one, or possibly two, extra speeches from Back Benches. I would argue that we must look to the qualitative argument in addition to the quantitive one. I suggest to my hon. Friend in all humility that, with a 10-minute rule in operation, with the best will in the world, new Members will not give way to interventions. It is hard enough as a new Member to participate sensibly in a debate by giving way and responding in an intelligent fashion. With a 10-minute rule, I fear that no interventions will be granted by Back Benchers during the two-hour period. I cannot foresee any way in which injury time could be taken out for interventions in a sensible and practical fashion. Interventions would be counted within the 10 minutes.
For the quantitative benefit of getting in one or two extra speeches, the House would suffer qualitatively in terms of contributions. I was always brought up to believe that this was a debating Chamber—not one where we have a serious of speeches.

Sir Peter Emery: rose——

Mr. Freeman: I am loth to give way, as I am making an extremely short speech.

Sir Peter Emery: I intervene just for the sake of accuracy. I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. When


the experiment was carried through the period of the 1979–80 Parliament it was interesting that, even with the limitation of 10-minute speeches, hon. Members gave way. Part of my hon. Friend's argument does not hold water historically.

Mr. Freeman: I accept that, but I point out that during the debate on the Rates Bill, I and many other hon. Members were frustrated at not being called. Under a voluntary restraint procedure, without the operation of a 10-minute rule, there was an excellent debate during which a great number of hon. Members were called. I have gone over that debate and tried to see how many extra speakers would have been called had a 10-minute rule operated. I was hard pushed to calculate more than one or, at the outside, two extra speakers. That happened under a restraint procedure, based upon Mr. Speaker's appeal to hon. Members. That system seemed to work well.
The second reason why I am not persuaded by the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton is that I think that the rule would discriminate against Back Benchers.

Mr. Rhodes James: Oh, no!

Mr. Freeman: The rule would discriminate against Back Benchers collectively, because I believe that the real perpetrators of lengthy speeches are seen before 7 pm. Appeals for brevity might more correctly be directed to Front Benchers and Privy Councillors. By imposing a limit upon Back Benchers, one is directing the rules and regulations at the wrong class of speaker. Once again, it is an example of the poor bloody infantry being singled out for attack when the real culprits are the general staff.

Mr. David Winnick: Like the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr. Freeman), I must confess that I am not over-enthusiastic about the proposals, but unlike him I think that there are arguments that we must believe in accepting this report. In some circumstances, so many hon. Members wish to contribute to a debate that a time limit of some type seems to be almost inevitable. We must accept that now, unlike previous times and previous centuries, virtually all hon. Members wish to speak—the only exception being Government Whips. In previous centuries, it was not unknown for a large number—perhaps the majority—of Members of Parliament not to participate in debates. It was never expected that they would speak. The time of the House was taken up by the oratory of the great stars, who certainly took more than 10 minutes to put their arguments. We are, therefore, in a different ball game.
One of the reasons why I believe a time limit is necessary is found in what is described as a day's debate. That is a misnomer. Rarely does a day's debate begin before 4 pm or shortly afterwards. Rarely does the day's debate begin immediately after Question Time. The reasons are obvious. There are private notice questions, statements, points of order—sometimes I am the guilty party—applications under Standing Order No. 10 and ten-minute Bills. On occasions, the day's debate can begin after 5 pm, although normally it begins at some time around 4.10 pm. If a debate begins at 4 pm or 4.10 pm, it will be after 5 pm before the two front Benches have finished.
Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition was followed by the Chancellor of the

Exchequer—not that we learnt much from the Chancellor—who finished his speech at 5.13 pm. So yesterday, Back Benchers had between 5.13 pm and 9 pm to contribute to the debate. In the main, there is time for perhaps 18 Back Benchers to speak before the replies begin—eight hon. Members from each side. We must recognise that as well as the humble back Benchers like myself, Privy Councillors on the Back Benches and hon. Members from minority parties wait to be called. We may find that in a so-called day's debate only six Back Benchers from the Labour Benches were called.
I have looked at yesterday's important debate on unemployment. Altogether, seven Labour Members of Parliament were called to speak on the major issue of unemployment, which affects all our constituencies. Going by what you said yesterday, Mr. Speaker, before the debate started a large number of Labour and Conservative Members wrote and asked whether they could be called. Of the seven Labour Members who spoke in yesterday's debate, one—my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mr. Parry)—had to limit himself to three minutes. One cannot make much of a case in three minutes, although my hon. Friend did well. I feel therefore, that there is a case for some kind of limitation. I hope that that limitation is not applied frequently and that there will be a great deal of restraint on your part, Mr. Speaker, in imposing such restraint. Given a choice of the times available for speaking, I would rather have 6 pm to 8 pm than 7 pm to 9 pm and my reasons are pretty obvious.
I should like to raise other matters. I hope that in raising the first point I shall not be misunderstood by you, Mr. Speaker. Should the alliance—which organises itself as one group and constantly says to the county} that its members are blood brothers and one group in Parliament although it has not had a formal amalgamation—be treated as two separate parties in debates? In effect, Opposition time is taken by a member from the Social Democratic party and the Liberal party, and the next speaker in the debate is from the Government side. That does not always happen, but when it does it makes inroads into the amount of time left for Labour Members of Parliament.
On another point would it be so bad—I hope that this will not be misunderstood—for a list of speakers to be published beforehand? The Procedure Committee report comes down heavily against that proposal. As I understand it, a list of speakers is put up in another place. The argument against having a list of speakers is that, if an hon. Member knows that his chances of being called are remote, he will not stay in the Chamber. I am not convinced by that argument. In practice—I hope that I am not causing Mr. Speaker any embarrassment—we ask Mr. Speaker about our chances.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: I don't.

Mr. Winnick: My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover—Simon Pure—does not, but most of us who have more human failings and weaknesses do so, if many Labour Members wish to speak.

Mr. Skinner: You mean you grovel.

Mr. Winnick: I have never grovelled in my life. I certainly do not need any lectures from my hon. Friend. I should be the last one to grovel to anyone.

Mr. Skinner: You are grovelling now.

Mr. Winnick: My hon. Friend knows my reaction to another remark that he made in December 1980.

Mr. Skinner: I know, when you grovelled to Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Winnick: At least I do not grovel to the media, like some I could mention.
It is pretty agonising to find that 12, 15 or 20 colleagues want to be called and we have no idea of our chances of speaking. We ask you, Mr. Speaker, as I know Conservative Members do. What would be the harm of experimenting with a list? One of the drawbacks might be that we should be unable to negotiate although I do not know that we can negotiate now. If a list is drawn up the chance of being called in a different batting order is somewhat remote. That is a weakness. If a list were published, one would not be able, I suppose to see you, Mr. Speaker, or the occupants of the Chair and change the batting order. There is a case—I am not arguing it strongly—for publishing a list so that we do not have to do what we do, and I make no apologies for doing it.
At the beginning of my remarks, I mentioned the pressure that there was to speak. It is expected that most of us will speak. Why not? We come here to put a point of view. I know that I am elected to put the point of view of those whom I represent—working people. If I did not do so there would hardly be any point in being here.
I am convinced that if television were introduced—I am not saying that I am the strongest opponent of television here—the pressure to speak would be even greater. Prime Minister's Question Time has been altered dramatically as a result of radio. It may well be that in time we shall have television, but I have yet to make up my mind about it. However, I know that if we were to bring the cameras into the Chamber there would be enormous pressure to be here and to speak; otherwise we should be criticised.
I do not argue with a great deal of enthusiasm for the experiment, but for the reasons that I have given, I believe that the Committee has probably come to the right conclusion.

Mr. Tony Favell: I listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Freeman). My experience is contrary to his views. I support the proposal, and I shall support the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James). There are far too many occasions when hon. Members sit in the Chamber for five or six hours with an important contribution to make but are unable to say a word, never mind make a short speech. I believe that that is worse than someone being cut short after 10 minutes.
My experience as a new Member has shown that those hon. Members who have been here for years and who have the greatest reputation, not just among new Members but among the older, are those who are clear and concise. Those who are not merely clear the Chamber.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: The Select Committee is to be congratulated on the report. It gives me cause to reflect on what happened to me when I was elected to the House in 1979. I, with many of my hon. Friends, came into the Chamber and witnessed what angered many of us on that occasion—a stream of

speakers being called, invariably led by Privy Councillors who to us at that time appeared to have a privileged position in terms of their right to speak.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek), who has had to return to his constituency, would, if he had caught your eye, Mr. Speaker, have drawn your attention to the debate on Government policy that took place on 31 July this year. He would have referred to the allocation of time, which is what this debate is about, and the proportion of time given to Front Bench spokesmen, Ministers, Back Benchers and Privy Councillors. During a debate that took five hours and 40 minutes, 45 per cent. of the time was allocated to Front Bench spokesmen and Ministers. Privy Councillors were allocated 25 per cent. That made a total of 70 per cent. Only 25 per cent. of the debate was allocated to the further 500 Members who, I believe, have equal rights during our debates.
I remember that I felt aggrieved when I was first elected and raised the matter with a number of my colleagues in the Tea Room. Amongst them was a good friend of mine, Mr. Bob Cryer, the former Member for Keighley. He said, "Dale, there is a simple way to deal with the problem. You forget Supply days, Government motions, Second Reading debates and you concentrate on Third Readings, Report stages, and Finance Bill Committee stages on the Floor of the House, and you have a feast. You will find that throughout the year you can enjoy your parliamentary life much more by being able to listen to others speak, because, invariably, on a tense Supply day"—invariably it is tense as everyone waits to speak—"people are not listening." There is a lesson in that for us all, but that does not mean that I wish to oppose the experiment. I see it as an experiment, but I have one reservation which is the point that was raised by the Leader of the House as to what happens with interventions.
One of the great joys of debating in the Chamber is what happens when there are interventions. They are the meat of our debates. The cut and thrust of parliamentary debate is dependent upon the quality of the interventions and the way in which some hon. Members are able to probe and expose inconsistencies in the case being put forward by the proponent of any argument.
I believe that this experiment, as it has been construed in the form in which it is being presented to the House, may well diminish to some extent the quality of our debates. I do not believe that the motion precludes you, Mr. Speaker, from taking into account the fact that those interventions are a vital part of our debates. In your wisdom you might wish to take into account the length of those interventions and, perhaps, allow a little flexibility as to what constitutes 10 minutes to ensure that we all enjoy the richness of what we believe to be some of the finest debates in the country.

Mr. John Browne: I agree with one of the sentiments expressed by the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours). It pointed to the percentage of time allocated in the debates. They are telling figures. But I disagree with him about interventions. The evidence shows that when this experiment was carried out before, it did not discourage interventions all that much.
I believe that the present experiment which is targeted at a certain time of the day for the later, mainly Back-Bench speeches is discriminatory and I agree about that with my


hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Freeman). I propose that the experiment be adopted for all Back-Bench speeches including Privy Councillors, and that the opening speeches of Ministers should be limited, like replies, to 30 minutes.
I agree with the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), who spoke of a list system. It does not give a true reflection of the modern day to have hon. Members waiting in the Chamber for two days during two-day debates. They prepare a speech and wait two days but do not get called. That is wasteful. We should move towards a list system which would reflect the modern age. Members would have a reasonable target at which to aim and would know whether they were likely to be called.
The reporting of the House has been mentioned. Hansard's reporting of debates is extremely good and fair because there is no editing. What worries me about BBC reporting in the Chamber and hence television, is that there is editing, and that means great political power. I should support the introduction of television into the Chamber but not while there is heavy editing, because that is an enormous encroachment of unrepresentative, unelected, political power.
I support the motion but not the amendment.

Mr. John Home Robertson: I am one of those masochists who voluntarily spends time in the Chamber listening to debates. I have a great deal of sympathy with you, Mr. Speaker, and the Deputy Speakers who have the misfortune to be compelled to sit through long debates.
I acknowledge that there is a problem and that there are some people who go on at some length and are inconsiderate to some of their colleagues on both sides of the House.
I remember an occasion when you, Mr. Speaker, made an effort to penalise one side of the House because a particular hon. Member on that side had spoken for rather too long. I know because I suffered from it. It was my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), speaking on the summer Adjournment, in connection with the Falkland islands. It was a very interesting speech but he went on at some length. As a consequence, you, Mr. Speaker, called two hon. Members from the other side of the House before you called me. I felt mildly aggrieved at the time because it was not my fault. That was one way of tackling the problem and it had some effect. I had better not dwell too much on my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow, who is a very dear friend.
As we all know, we have the problem of people who abuse their opportunties in this House. The Select Committee's proposal is useful and I should like to give it a fair wind, but I am worried that it builds into the Standing Orders, Mr. Speaker, the existence of your list of speakers. The motion is that
Mr. Speaker may announce at the commencement of public business that, because of the number of Members wishing to speak in a debate
a certain procedure will be followed. Presumably, at the commencement of public business, no one has yet had an opportunity to rise in his place and seek to catch your eye. The only way in which you can know that hon. Members want to catch your eye is when they have written to you, and you have a list on your shelf. I am a little worried about that. Some of us have misgivings about the existence

of that list and pecking order. Everyone has a quick look at it. If hon. Members find that they are not well placed on the list, they tend to leave and do not come back until the Division at 10 pm. It is a pity that the random element of trying to catch Mr. Speaker's eye does not seem to apply any longer. Perhaps that is a matter meriting further consideration in due course.
However, the proposal is flexible. You, Mr. Speaker, already have discretion in several matters. We have the so-called ten-minute Bills. I have heard speeches which have continued for rather more than 10 minutes when hon. Members have been seeking the leave of the House to introduce Bills.
The consequence of the proposal could affect the Scottish Grand Committee, and I should like to ask the Leader of the House about that. As you know, Mr. Speaker, the Scottish Grand Committee is a sort of hybrid Committee. It is not a Standing Committee such as those that deal with legislation. It is a Committee which deals with the Second Readings of Bills, with matter days and Estimates days, and business of that nature. As a consequence of the proposal, could similar restraints be imposed in the Scottish and Welsh Grand Committees? I do not express a view on whether that would be a good or bad thing, but I wonder whether the proposal may have knock-on effects.
There are certain problems which always affect us when the House is dealing with Scottish affairs. As you know, Mr. Speaker, there are not many Scottish Conservative Back Benchers. Therefore, when the House is dealing with Scottish legislation or the Second Readings of Scottish Bills, we always have the rather unedifying spectacle of the Scottish Conservative Whip going out into the highways and byways to look for the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker), on whom he knows he can rely to make his usual speech. Some of us have heard that speech on many occasions. It should not be necessary for the hon. Member for Tayside, North to be present at the Second Reading of every Scottish Bill and make that speech. Anything that can restrict the padding that is sometimes inserted into debates, particularly Scottish debates, will be most welcome.
The motion embodies a useful proposal, and I am grateful to the Select Committee on Procedure for bringing it before us. I think the House should give it a fair wind.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: I want to put it on the record—[HON. MEMBERS: "Filibuster".] No, I shall not filibuster. I just want to put on the record that I am amazed at the number of people on our side of the House, in particular on the Back Benches, who have adopted the attitude that the proposal is not a bad idea and that we should give it a fair run. Most of those present on the Opposition Benches are the type of people who would be seen here at 1 am and 2 am, fighting against the Government, doing the Opposition's job. I just cannot understand their naivety in imagining that the proposal will do other than give more power to the Executive.
The proposal will not curb the speeches from the Government; it will not result in the Opposition Front Bench having to curtail their speeches. It will even allow Dr. Death, called by the Speaker immediately after the two Front Benchers, to speak on behalf of the SDP, contradicting the Liberal spokesman, as he did today on the statement—but I shall not go into that. They are


allowed 20 minutes. I am not against the Liberals and the SDP having 20 minutes each to contradict one another. But when statements are made, a nice little group of people —the leader of this party, that party and the other party—are handed copies of the statements, whatever they may be. Back Benchers must be made to go along with the idea of handing power to the Executive and to the Speaker.
It was suggested that the proposal will be an experiment. As for there being any question of my grovelling to television, I remind the House that the miners' strike has been on for eight months and I have not appeared once on BBC television. Hon. Members can draw the conclusion that, far from grovelling, I have been giving people some stick.
During the past 14 years I have been concerned about the way in which power has gravitated even more towards the Executive. As Labour Members we are supposed to be using every available minute of our time in thwarting the Government. The only value of the Opposition is in buying time, in stalling, in using time effectively to hold up the Government. Yet hon. Members are agreeing that it will be all right for some people to speak for 40 minutes because we are daft enough to make our speeches in eight or nine minutes. When we get to the most important point we shall be allowing the Speaker to pull us up and prevent us from finishing the speech. If we do that we shall get into an incongruous position. Are nearly 200 Opposition Members and 300 Conservative Members going to fall into that trap? Surely they have more sense than that.
The idea is put forward that the Speaker is somehow immune from criticism, and that he can be given the so-called objective task of deciding when to operate the scheme. It will be for the Speaker to decide who is to be stopped in full flight. I have an idea who will be the first one to get the whip. I have only to say two things of the wrong sort and the Speaker pulls me up. I shall not fall for the proposal.
During the past 14 years the Executive has taken more power to itself. There have been occasions in the recent past when the Speaker has prevented business questions from being continued when hon. Members have been on their feet wanting to raise legitimate items of business for the following week. It has been said that it happens only occasionally and that generally speaking, the Speaker will call every hon. Member who has risen. But every so often we find that the Executive seeks to reduce further the opportunities for Back Benchers to raise issues. The same argument applies to statements.

Mr. Home Robertson: I fear that my hon. Friend may be misunderstanding the proposal that is before the House. Like my hon. Friend, I would hate to give up any opportunity that already exists to obstruct the business of the Government. [Interruption.] What we are debating here is business which is already——

(1) That during the next Session Mr. Speaker may announce at the commencement of public business that, because of the number of Members wishing to speak in a debate on one of the matters specified in paragraph (2) of this Order, he will call Members either between six o'clock and ten minutes before eight o'clock or between seven o'clock and ten minutes before nine o'clock to speak for not more than ten minutes; and whenever Mr. Speaker has made such an announcement he may, between those hours, direct any Member who has spoken for ten minutes in such a debate to resume his seat forthwith.

(2) This Order shall apply to debates on:

(a) the second reading of public bills;

Mr. Skinner: Has my hon. Friend read the motion?

Mr. Home Robertson: I am wondering——

Mr. Skinner: What I have to say to the hon. Member for wherever it is with those thousands of acres, is this. One gives an inch and they take a mile. Now it is Supply days, then it is Second Readings and then it is something else. They will say, "It is only an extension of what we did in 1984, when we allowed Mr. Speaker to stop us after 10 minutes." When television comes, some more rules will be brought in, and we shall have to curtail our speeches even more. Why? Because television has had such an impact in every area of our life into which it has intruded.

Mr. Home Robertson: My hon. Friend has not read the motion.

Mr. Skinner: I have read it. There is no need to make snide remarks about not having read it. I am saying to the House: Don't just look at what is on the Order Paper. Look into the future and imagine what the Executive will do once it realises that it has a list of tame Back Benchers prepared to toe the line and go along with a cosy arrangement that has been drawn up by the club of consensus. Whenever I see the Front Benches agreeing together, I have a natural instinct to say that there is something wrong.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: That is a good rule.

Mr. Skinner: When the official Opposition and Government Front Bench get together, and the leaders of the Liberal party and the Social Democratic party tell their minions to join in, I know that it smells. If the Whips are involved as well, it is even worse. So I have read the motion and I know what it means in practice. No doubt it will be carried as these 10 Back Benchers flock into the Lobby to support that consensus and Mr. Speaker. However, I am prepared to bet that in 12 months' time there will be more people against it than there are now.
I say to my hon. Friends: Do not have anything to do with this. Our job is to harry the Government day and night. Some of us like to use that opportunity. Once one gives the power to the Executive that is suggested in the motion, they will say that they will take a little more from us. I am not prepared to give them that inch. They might want to take a mile later. They are not having anything from me tonight.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House takes note of the First Report of the Select Committee on Procedure (House of Commons Paper No. 570) and agrees with the recommendations contained in paragraph 14.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

(b) matters selected under paragraph (2) of Standing Order No. 6 (Arrangement of public business) for consideration on allotted Opposition days; and

(c) motions in the name of a Minister of the Crown.

That this Order be a Standing Order of the House until the end of the next Session of Parliament.—[Mr. Biffen.]

Amendment proposed to the Question, in line 5, after 'o'clock', insert
', on Monday to Thursday sittings, and between half-past eleven o'clock and one o'clock on Friday sittings,'.—[Mr. Rhodes James.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The House divided: Ayes 49, Noes 34.

Division No. 481]
[7.54 pm


AYES


Alton, David
Hayward, Robert


Amess, David
Hind, Kenneth


Beith, A. J.
Kennedy, Charles


Benyon, William
Key, Robert


Biffen, Rt Hon John
Lester, Jim


Boyes, Roland
McWilliam, John


Brandon-Bravo, Martin
Marek, Dr John


Brown, N. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne E)
Meadowcroft, Michael


Burt, Alistair
Moynihan, Hon C.


Butler, Hon Adam
Page, Richard (Herts SW)


Butterfill, John
Powley, John


Campbell-Savours, Dale
Robinson, Mark (N'port W)


Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)
Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')


Cartwright, John
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Cash, William
Sims, Roger


Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)
Spencer, Derek


Coombs, Simon
Steel, Rt Hon David


Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'ge H'l)
Taylor, John (Solihull)


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.
Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Waller, Gary


Eyre, Sir Reginald
Watson, John


Fallon, Michael
Wood, Timothy


Favell, Anthony



Forth, Eric
Tellers for the Ayes:


Franks, Cecil
Mr. Robert Rhodes James and Mr. Richard Ottaway.


Ground, Patrick



Hargreaves, Kenneth





NOES


Bellingham, Henry
MacKay, John (Argyll &amp; Bute)


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Madden, Max


Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)
Mather, Carol


Browne, John
Molyneaux, Rt Hon James


Buck, Sir Antony
Parry, Robert


Carlisle, John (N Luton)
Pike, Peter


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Powell, Rt Hon J. E. (S Down)


Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)
Proctor, K. Harvey


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Smyth, Rev W. M. (Belfast S)


Forsythe, Clifford (S Antrim)
Soames, Hon Nicholas


Glyn, Dr Alan
Stevens, Martin (Fulham)


Harvey, Robert
Stradling Thomas, J.


Holt, Richard
Viggers, Peter


Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)
Walker, Bill (T'side N)


Knight, Gregory (Derby N)



Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)
Tellers for the Noes:


Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)
Mr. Dennis Skinner and Mr. Robert Atkins.


MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

Question accordingly agreed to.

Main Question, as amended, put:

The House divided: Ayes 67, Noes 22.

Division No. 482]
[8.4 pm


AYES


Adley, Robert
Brandon-Bravo, Martin


Alton, David
Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)


Amess, David
Browne, John


Beith, A. J.
Burt, Alistair


Benyon, William
Butterfill, John


Biffen, Rt Hon John
Campbell-Savours, Dale





Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)
Meadowcroft, Michael


Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Molyneaux, Rt Hon James


Cartwright, John
Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)


Cash, William
Moynihan, Hon C.


Clwyd, Mrs Ann
Ottaway, Richard


Coombs, Simon
Page, Richard (Herts SW)


Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'ge H'l)
Powell, Rt Hon J. E (S Down)


Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.
Powley, John


du Cann, Rt Hon Edward
Rhodes James, Robert


Emery, Sir Peter
Robertson, George


Eyre, Sir Reginald
Robinson, Mark (N'port W)


Favell, Anthony
Sainsbury, Hon Timothy


Forsythe, Clifford (S Antrim)
Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')


Forth, Eric
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)


Franks, Cecil
Shore, Rt Hon Peter


Glyn, Dr Alan
Short, Mrs R.(W'hampt'n NE)


Ground, Patrick
Smyth, Rev W. M. (Belfast S)


Hargreaves, Kenneth
Spencer, Derek


Harvey, Robert
Steel, Rt Hon David


Hayward, Robert
Taylor, John (Solihull)


Hind, Kenneth
Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)


Holt, Richard
Viggers, Peter


Home Robertson, John
Watson, John


Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)
Winnick, David


Kennedy, Charles
Wood, Timothy


Key, Robert



Lawrence, Ivan
Tellers for the Ayes:


Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)
Mr. John McWilliam and Mr. Roger Sims.


Lester, Jim



MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)





NOES


Bellingham, Henry
Marek, Dr John


Boscawen, Hon Robert
Mather, Carol


Boyes, Roland
Parry, Robert


Carlisle, John (N Luton)
Pike, Peter


Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)
Prescott, John


Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)
Proctor, K. Harvey


Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Silkin, Rt Hon J.


Freeman, Roger
Walker, Bill (T'side N)


Howard, Michael
Waller, Gary


Knight, Gregory (Derby N)



Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)
Tellers for the Noes:


MacKay, John (Argyll &amp; Bute)
Mr. Dennis Skinner and Mr. Robert Atkins.


Madden, Max

Question, as amended, agreed to.

Ordered,
(1) That during the next Session Mr. Speaker may announce at the commencement of public business that, because of the number of Members wishing to speak in a debate on one of the matters specified in paragraph (2) of this Order, he will call Members either between six o'clock and ten minutes before eight o'clock or between seven o'clock and ten minutes before nine o'clock on Monday to Thursday sittings, and between half-past eleven o'clock and one o'clock on Friday sittings to speak for not more than ten minutes; and whenever Mr. Speaker has made such an announcement he may, between those hours, direct any Member who has spoken for ten minutes in such a debate to resume his seat forthwith.
(2) This Order shall apply to debates on:
(a) the second reading of public bills;
(b) matters selected under paragraph (2) of Standing Order No. 6 (Arrangement of public business) for consideration on alloted Opposition days; and
(c) motions in the name of a Minister of the Crown.
That this Order be a Standing Order of the House until the end of the next Session of Parliament.

Mr. Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It should be placed on record, and perhaps you will take this


into account because as Mr. Speaker you will have a great deal of discretion in the matter of 10-minute speeches, that, out of the 650 Members of Parliament who are available to take part in this momentous exercise, fewer than 100 chose to do so. As only 93 hon. Members took part in the vote, you should, during the course of the year of this experiment, bear in mind that the number of Members participating in the vote was a minute proportion—a smaller proportion than could be secured in a postal ballot for a trade union leader, or in Some other examples about which we have heard so much.
What sort of democracy is it that prevails here? Eighty per cent. of hon. Members are playing truant, have gone absent or are on fact-finding tours in the Caribbean or wherever they are sunning themselves. I hope Mr. Speaker, that you will take all those factors into account and that you will use whatever authority you have, stick it under the cushion under your Chair and keep it there.

Mr. Speaker: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman.

MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN

INCOME TAX

The Vice-Chamberlain of the Household: reported Her Majesty's Answer to the Address, as follows:
I have received your Addresses praying that that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (China) Order 1984 and the Double Taxation Relief (Air Transport Profits) (Kuwait) Order 1984 be made in the form of the drafts laid before your House.
I will comply with your request.

House of Commons Services

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That this House takes note with approval of the Second Report of the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services) (House of Commons Paper No. 256).—[Mr. Biffen]

Mr. Roger Sims: I suspect that our debate this evening will not be found on the front page of the tabloids tomorrow morning. We shall probably be fortunate if it merits even a line or two in the so-called heavies. That is unfortunate, because part of our discussions will be devoted to the work of all-party groups, of which, according to the Select Committee report that we are considering, there are some 180. It is perhaps inevitable that the party system under which our politics are run, the configuration of this Chamber and the fact that there is somewhat selective broadcasting of our debates, such as the debate yesterday, give the impression to our constituents that we as Members of Parliament are constantly at odds with each other.
The fact is, as we know and they do not, that a great deal of work is done across the party line, and in the many all-party groups in which are represented Members of Parliament who may belong to different parties but who have certain interests in common, and who work together to further those interests. Those all-party groups serve an important, valuable and vital role in our parliamentary system.
Allied to the all-party groups are a number of what might be described as political interest groups, which involve not only Members of Parliament but outsiders who meet here to discuss matters that particularly interest them with Members of Parliament. There has been a notable proliferation of such groups in the past few years, and that development has been the subject of some criticism. I do not concur in that criticism. The more that Members of Parliament work together across party lines on nonpartisan issues, the better. The more that Members of Parliament meet those affected by our decisions, listen to their views and take those views into account, the better. However, the proliferation has caused problems, not the least of which has been the sheer difficulty of finding rooms within the Palace of Westminster and the outbuildings where the groups may meet.
The House should congratulate the Services Committee on having sought to grasp that nettle and made various proposals. In particular, the Committee has sought in some way to codify the various groups. It attempts to distinguish between groups involving only Members of Parliament and those that involve strangers—as we call them. It has also suggested a priority booking system for accommodation. The system seems logical and workable. We shall find out when we try it.
It is, however, unfortunate that the Committee did not resolve the important issue of nomenclature. Paragraph D on page x of the report suggests:
The term all-party group should be applied only to those bodies consisting solely of members of this or both Houses … Bodies which admit non-members … should be styled parliamentary groups.
The use of the expression "parliamentary group" has increased in recent years. If the report is adopted as it stands, the use of that expression as applied to groups containing non-Members will be officially recognised. The word "parliamentary" implies that the body that it


describes is either an integral part of Parliament or very closely connected with it. The word "Parliament" is often used to describe the buildings in which we meet, but Parliament was not destroyed by the fire of 1834. Parliament is an assembly—a unique body of people. I am jealous of Parliament and of its standards and reputation. I hope that I shall not appear to be unduly self-important, or to be standing on my dignity, when I say that I am proud to be a Member of Parliament. I believe that that feeling is shared by many hon. Members, whether they entered the House a year ago, or 10 or 20 years ago, or more. It is an honour and a privilege to be one of the 650 people who represent millions of our fellow citizens. I wish to protect Parliament, and its name. The expression "parliamentary" should be used sparingly, especially if it is to be used in any formalised or official way.
Some of the party groups or so-called parliamentary groups—I quote from paragraph 2 of the introduction to the report—
were believed to be using the House's status, as well as its heat, light and space, for purposes which were non-parliamentary".
On page 1 of the report, a letter from the Parliamentary Labour Party refers to:
The way in which unofficial bodies use the House of Commons connection to imply greater status than they would otherwise have.
I do not suggest for a moment that many of these parliamentary groups should be criticised. Most of them are entirely respectable. There is, for example, the parliamentary all-party penal affairs group. That is a group in which I have some interest. I make no criticism whatsoever of the activities of that group. It is a well-conducted and well-informed group which carries out some very good work and has produced some useful documents.I have attended a number of its meetings. One might say that I was a member of the group, but here another problem arises—how to define a member of a so-called parliamentary group. Members of the all-party groups which cover various countries attached to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the Inter-Parliamentary Union are always invited to make a nominal subscription. There is, therefore, a membership list. I know, because I am treasurer of such a group. However, many of the other groups are simply groups of interested people. There is a general invitation to Members of Parliament to attend meetings.
Those Members of Parliament who attend may not be specifically members of the group. Should there be a stipulation that such a group should contain, say, five or 10 hon. Members or Peers? Most of the meetings of the penal affairs group are held in the Jubilee Room. They are usually attended by two or three hon. Members—sometimes more, or sometimes only one—together with perhaps a handful of Members of the other House. The meetings are also attended by probation officers, magistrates, social workers, people from the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, court clerks and prison officers. They are all interested in the issue under consideration—penal affairs. However, should such a group be called a parliamentary group? Does it merit that description simply because it meets within this building? Does it merit it simply because a few Members of Parliament attend its meetings? If, instead of meeting in the Jubilee Room, the group met in Central Hall across the road, would we describe it as a parliamentary group?

If we must call a group "parliamentary" simply because a few hon. Members belong to it, virtually any group of people including a few hon. Members could describe it as a parliamentary group. Let us suppose that a number of people who are interested, in writing—in good books—get together and form a group and meet regularly at the Savoy hotel, and that the group includes—as it well might—some hon. Members. Such a group would not—surely—be called a parliamentary group. However, if that group moved a short distance up the river and tied its meetings in the conference rooms of Norman Shaw North, I presume that it could be called a parliamentary group.
By all means let us use the term "parliamentary" for groups of Members of Parliament. All-party groups could certainly be described as all-party parliamentary groups, because they are composed of hon. Members of this House. However, the expression should rarely be used for any other group. The report proposes a system of registration. If we have to give groups names I suggest that they be known as registered groups. That would distinguish them. I recognise that some groups such as the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee are old established, reputable and might fall foul of my amendment. That is why I said that the expression "parliamentary" should be used only rarely for groups that do not consist solely of Members of Parliament.
The report proposes that the Accommodation and Administration Sub-Committee should oversee implementation of the regulations in the report and be empowered to operate according to the spirit rather than to the letter. I should be content for that Committee to use discretion about the use of the word "parliamentary". If the report is not amended, all sorts of groups could call themselves parliamentary, with all that that implies and, more importantly, all that that appears to imply outside the House.
I assume that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and the Serjeant at Arms will draw up detailed regulations and publish them. I hope that my right hon. Friend and the House will accept my amendment and that the regulations that are to be published later reflect the spirit of what I have said.

Mr. John Silkin: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) for his description of the report by the Sub-Committee on Administration and Accommodation, of which I am the Chairman. We felt that the problem had been growing in difficulty and importance for so long that it was best, at the earliest opportunity, to provide the House with a report that it might digest. We therefore reported about nine months ago to the Services Committee, which reported to the House about eight months ago. There has been a long gestation during which the problem has grown.
Hon. Members might be surprised at the number of ad-party groups. We have only unofficial figures because there is no system of registration. It is fairly accurate to suggest that there are more than 80 groups linked by a common interest—often an industry—and another 100 which are based on an interest in an overseas country. As the hon. Gentleman said, some are under the aegis of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association or the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The problem arises from groups competing for a finite number of Committee Rooms. Moreover, they are in competition at popular times of the


week with Committees of the House, party meetings and other committees. Although a limited system of priorities operates, there are still difficulties. Important party bodies have had difficulty in securing rooms. We all have experience of that. The groups have also experienced difficulty. The pressure is such that, if a House Committee displaces a group's meeting without much notice—the rules properly allow for that—the meeting often has to be cancelled because no alternative room can be offered. We must develop a system that as" nearly as possible satisfies both of those conditions.
As the hon. Member for Chislehurst said, there is strong justification for all-party groups. The hon. Gentleman gave a valid and rather splendid example of what might have been a parliamentary group were it meeting in the House but which was not because it met in the Savoy hotel. I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman was not criticising the Savoy hotel. Although all-party groups have no organic connection with the House, they have been recognised as part of parliamentary life for many years. We ought not to disturb that recognition. It is important for hon. Members to maintain their links with outside bodies. If we do not do that, we become too inbred and repeat too much of what we have heard before.

Mr. Robert Adley: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) that groups have proliferated. The right hon. Gentleman has just used the word "recognised" and my hon. Friend used the word "registered". I have read the document carefully, although I have left my monocle and glasses behind so I cannot see as much as I would like. Who will do the recognising and the registering? That is not clear from the document.

Mr. Silkin: The rules for regulation and registration—I shall deal with enforcement later—will be matters for the Services Committee. If the House accepts the motion, the immediate provision of terms of registration will fall to the Sub-Committee on Administration and Accommodation. I hope that the rules that it provides will be generally satisfactory.
Links with all-party groups are part of the life of the House. They must not be severed, but we must keep a balance. I understand what the hon. Member for Chislehurst said. He wants to preserve those links while preserving the dignity and life of Parliament. We must take the principle that parliamentary accommodation should be used for parliamentary purposes. The proposal is that there should be an ordered priority in booking rooms in which groups that have given undertakings about their general structure and activity, and which can therefore be considered to have linked themselves to Parliament, should have relative priority in booking rooms. The proposal has the additional benefit of dealing with the criticism that too many non-Members of either House can become involved in activities in the Palace of Westminster.
We have been told of meetings at which strangers have addressed strangers with or without the presence of hon. Members. We have heard rumours that some strangers might even have been charged for entrance to group meetings. We believe that the remedy lies first in real all-party groups being distinguished from parliamentary groups that admit strangers to their membership.

Secondly, an all-party group would have to consist of hon. Members of more than one political party. It would be restricted to Members of this or both Houses and there would be no registration formalities. Parliamentary groups would have to register. They would include people who are not hon. Members, although they would have to be open to all hon. Members. Moreover, they would have to have at least five Members from the party in government and five from the parties in opposition. If a subscription is to be charged to hon. Members, it should be limited to a token amount.
Finally, there should be an explicit undertaking to respect the rules. That would ensure and guarantee the parliamentary nature of the occasion. The benefit of registration is that there would be a form of relative preference in booking a Committee room. The absolute preference, given to House Committees and subject only to the lien enjoyed at certain times in certain rooms by the meetings of the three largest parties, would continue. If a room were required for such a meeting, all other bookings, no matter when they were made, would be overridden.
A relative preference would be given to single party groups, those groups confined to two or more parties, all-party groups, recognised parliamentary groups and individual hon. Members who are meeting their constituents or those directly connected with their constituency. Those bodies or persons would enjoy their existing long-standing right to book Committee Rooms from recess to recess and from Easter to the summer.
No other bookings, for example from a non-registered parliamentary group, would be accepted until a calendar month before the intended meeting. Meetings which by their character or registration are demonstrably parliamentary would have a place higher in the queue than others.
I told the hon. Member for Chislehurst that I would deal briefly with enforcement. We have deliberately made no provision for enforcement. Hon. Members must draw the attention of the Services Committee to instances where they believe that the rules or the spirit of the rules have been broken. That is how we normally order our affairs and no other form of policing would be acceptable.
Having made that point, I feel that I am slightly begging the hon. Gentleman's question, which was what was the definition of "parliamentary". A parliamentary group is one in which the element of parliamentary interest outweighs the group itself. He cited the Penal Reform group. I would cite the Disablement group. There is a distinct parliamentary interest in those groups, which means that there is every reason why their meetings, although attended by few hon. Members, should be held in the Palace of Westminster and not in the Savoy hotel.

Sir Peter Emery: Some members of the Ghana parliamentary group are Members not of this Parliament, but of the Ghanaian Parliament. When Ghana has a Parliament, the difficulty does not arise, but there have been periods in the history of Ghana—there is one now—when its Parliament has been abolished. At such times those people are no longer Members of Parliament as such. I hope that to fulfil the wish of the Ghana parliamentary group, whose interest is basically with the Ghanaian people and in the parliamentary structure, that that unfortunate happening would not mean that the group would cease to meet the definition of the Services Committee.

Mr. Silkin: A parliamentary group is one in which the Parliament concerned is the United Kingdom Parliament. There are a number of overseas groups where the strict definition may not always be applicable. However. I take the hon. Gentleman's point.
The hon. Member for Chislehurst must forgive me when I say that we are getting into deep waters by making the distinction for which he asks. I ask him to reconsider his amendment and to wait and see how the proposals in the report work. He is asking too much of the Administration and Accommodation Sub-Committee at the moment.
There is a further disadvantage. There is nothing to stop such a group from calling itself a registered parliamentary group. The hon. Gentleman, Mr. Speaker or I could not intervene and prevent it from inserting the adjective "parliamentary". Any group can call itself parliamentary if it so wishes. We cannot tell some groups that they are all-party groups or parliamentary groups, and others that they are only registered groups because the Sub-Committee on Administration and Accommodation has so decided. That is a recipe for disaster.

Mr. Sims: I do not wish to prolong the argument. I do not quarrel with the Sub-Committee's distinction between groups which consist solely of hon. Members and groups which contain other elements. My point related to the wording used to describe them—the classification of those groups. I agree with the rest of the report.

Mr. Silkin: I well understand that. My point is that the judgment which he asks us continually to make may be difficult to make. I cannot see any way of stopping people from inserting "parliamentary" into a description of their group. I think that it would be best to see how the proposals in the report work. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be willing to withdraw his amendment. We in our turn will undertake to keep it under constant review and to reconsider it in the House if events justify it.
I started with the question of timing, and I shall finish with it. We had hoped that the proposals would be implemented at the beginning of the 1984–85 Session. It is a long time since the Services Committee reported. In view of the time that has elapsed since the report was made, perhaps we should consider deferring its implementation until January 1985. That would allow full time for parliamentary registration and for the other formalities to be carried out.

Mr. Edward du Cann: All hon. Members will agree that the second report of the House of Commons Services Committee is a most useful document. The House owes a debt of gratitude to the right hon. member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin) and his colleagues, who have done the work that has led to the report's publication. I am sure that hon. Members present would like to congratulate him on his lucid presentation of the report.
I had looked forward to the right hon. Gentleman making his maiden speech from the Back Benches, where some of the most distinguished hon. Members habitually sit. I am surprised that he is still on the Front Bench. His eminence deserves that position. Whether he is on the Back Benches or on the Front Bench, it is good to see him in such good form.
The report has its origins in the determination on the part of a number of senior hon. Members to bring about a change in the way in which we carry out part of our work. Those particularly involved were the chairman of the parliamentary Labour party, his predecessors, to whom I wish to pay tribute, some prominent Opposition Front Bench Members, including the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), and many of my colleagues in the 1922 Committee. Our objective was clear to curtail, if not to prevent, the abuse of the facilities of Parliament by outsiders. The process began more than five years ago. The need was obvious then and it has become more acute since. It led first to the establishment of a small group of hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Mr. Cope) the acting Chief Government Whip, and subsequently to this report. All those who played a part in the process deserve the appreciation of the House. This debate, too, should be welcomed. It is essential that prompt action follows the long period of gestation.
We have an undoubted dilemma in the House. As the mechanics of democracy—its proud, enthusiastic practitioners—we must all insist that nothing should be done that would make it more difficult for members of the public to meet their parliamentary representatives at any time to discuss with them the issues of the day, to hear their views, or for us to render account of our motives and actions. The House of Parliament exist by courtesy of the people of our nation. They are our Houses, I agree, but they are first for the transaction of the business of our nation and for the individuals who comprise it. We are their representatives and we must have proper facilities to do our work—unmolested, but I would not say undisturbed. We are their servants and they, our electors, must have full access to us at all times. Indeed, I would argue further that it is our special duty in a democracy to do our best to involve members of the public to the greatest extent possible in our work. It is a daily necessit) that we ensure that their participation in our work is brought about on the widest possible scale.
All that is clear and indisputable. However, common sense dictates that there must be orderliness. Inevitably, therefor, there must be physical limitations on access. This place is not Wembley stadium; it cannot accommodate 100,000 people at any one time. The dilemma for us comes in deciding where to draw the line of regulation and limitation.
Since I entered the House of Commons, and especially during the past 10 or perhaps five years, two new factors have intervened, or perhaps two old factors have become much more important. The first is the growth of the organised lobby, which is perhaps inevitable. Perhaps because of the increased influence of Government, which now reaches down to touch every corner of our daily lives, it is inevitable that groups of people will wish to come together inceasingly to influence what we do. Some my argue that the growth of the organised lobby is valuable, for good Government depends on well-informed representatives, and those who lobby us do much to improve our knowledge.
However, as the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford correctly said and as the report shows, there has undoubtedly been much abuse of the willingness of Members of Parliament to help outside bodies to present their cases. The report substantially understates that abuse;


I think it is formidable and it must be brought to an end. I warmly endorse the statement in paragraph 3 of the report that,
parliamentary accommodation should be used for parliamentary purposes.
The report is absolutely right to differentiate between those activities which are essential to the effecient functioning of Parliament and those which are purely ancillary.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) spoke, with his usual ability and clarity, very much to the point at issue. We all know how necessary it is to give proper priority to party committees, to such all-party groups as Select Committees, and to all-party committees such as the British-American parliamentary group, the national groups or the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee; but, with my hon. Friend, I put a large question mark against ancillary groups.
On the subject of lobbies and their growth, my advice to my right hon. and hon. Friends is simply this: Members of Parliament should be a little more cynical about lobbies and pressure groups than we have hitherto been. We must adjust our attitudes now that there are so many of them, and we must be more selective in our readiness to listen. That is the first new, or changed, factor.
The second new factor relates to security. The security system now must be different from what it was only a short time ago. There is an overriding need for competent security in this place on a continual basis, and all of us who have recent events very much in mind would agree with that. We must show much greater sympathy with the work that the Serjeants at Arms and the police must do on our behalf, and we have a duty to make their task easier than it is at present. In the general interest, we must be much stricter than we are about the right of admission to this place. There is no sense in the modern context of saying to everybody, as we appear to do now, "By all means come into this place as of right." For that reason, I wholly agree with the spirit of my hon. Friend's remarks when he spoke to his amendment.
We could argue the matter this way or that way, and could draw the line a little on that side or a little on the other; the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford was right to say that we should mull over these matters more quietly and perhaps consider them in cloistered session. We would be justified in reflecting a little on what we have allowed to happen in this place. We allow secretaries, research assistants, and people who work in the Library not quite unrivalled access to all parts of the building, but much freer access than they used to have. I begin to wonder whether we are not allowing the people who work here the right almost to take over the place. We would be much healthier and better able to do our work if we introduced much stricter rules about where people might go. After all, the House depends largely on the ability of Members of Parliament to communicate together privately in rooms and corridors. The corridors are not for gossip among Library assistants, nor are they places of access for secretaries with their papers.
I hope that everything that we do in future, and the consideration given by the Select Committee on Services to our affairs, will begin from the premise that we cannot possibly do our work in the way in which we need to do it in the national interest unless we reserve this place primarily for ourselves.
I end as I began by welcoming the report. It has taken a long time to produce. In my view it is not as strict as it ought to be because we must come to terms with these two new factors. In that context I hope that we will be very strict about who we allow to come here and who we allow to interfere with the work that we must do in the nation's interest.

Mr. Robert Adley: I am grateful to those who organise affairs for allowing us to have this debate. This is a House of Commons matter, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) rightly reminded us, essentially we are here as guardians of the public interest. Although, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) said, the matters we are discussing will not hit the headlines, we should be aware that we are looking not just after our own interests but also the interests of this place on behalf of the people.
The fact that my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton is here is something which every hon. Member welcomes and notes, because, above all else, he is a parliamentarian. He is diligent in his duty not only on behalf of those whom he chairs as chairman of the 1922 Committee but also and always in his dealings with the hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Dormand) in the work that they do not only on behalf of Back Benchers but on behalf of the institution of Parliament.
I very much agree that, welcome though the report is, in many ways it is modest and very polite about some of the abuses that we know have been going on, both commercially and quasi-politically in the name of this Parliament building.
This is an all-party occasion and it would be unfortunate if I said anything to ruffle anyone's feathers. However, we have seen how some local authorities—I shall mention no names—have almost deliberately sought to create groups with outlandish names and titles in order to provide a forum for minority groups. We all support the rights of minority groups, but in some cases this has got completely out of control. If we are to follow the report's proposals—and let me be quite ridiculous—a group representing "Left-handed Lesbians Against the Bomb" would be dignified with the title "parliamentary group". That is not the way to help solve this problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst made that point extremely well.
I hope that his amendment will be withdrawn only on the strict understanding that the Services Committee will take seriously the view that has already been expressed and which may well be repeated again. It is not a matter of great secrecy if I mention that the Select Committee on Members' Interests, on which I serve, has been looking at the question of lobbying. I very much agree with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton said. There are quite disgraceful abuses of the word "Parliament" and of the use of this building. I really do fear that the title "parliamentary group", rather than solving the problem, will make it worse.
I intervened briefly in the speech of the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin) and asked him to amplify his views on the use of the phrase "registration". I fear that we may compound the problem rather than solve it by referring to a registered group. We would thereby be dignifying people in the knowledge that not only are they allowed to call themselves a parliamentary group but that they can say that they are on


the register. One can envisage certain public relations companies claiming that not only are they a parliamentary group but that they are "registered" parliamentary groups. That makes the matter even worse.
We all know how journalists like to have a hook on which to hang a story, and they like to have a title on which to hang the name of a Member of Parliament. It does not matter whether the Member of Parliament is chairman, deputy chairman or secretary of X, Y or Z parliamentary group, because many of us know that many of our all-party groups and party group sub-committees are less important than their titles imply. It is because we are presumably trying to stop the abuse or misrepresentation that we know takes place in the House in the use of the name "parliamentary group" or "all-party group" that we are here tonight.
There was a story in The Times "Diary" only today about a public relations company which apparently tried to invite all the members of a Select Committee to a dinner in order to put across the case on behalf of a pharmaceutical company. That sort of activity could well be aided and abetted by following the example of registering the use of the word "parliamentary".
Another point that has been touched on this evening relates to bilateral groups. I hope that if I mention that no one will think that I am washing dirty parliamentary linen in public. However, in the past year or so it appears that the usual channels have, for the best of reasons, decided to tighten up on the formation of bilateral parliamentary groups, by which I mean, in the terms of the report, not parliamentary but all-party groups—in other words, groups for Members of Parliament of both Houses exclusively which seek to take an interest in and be nominated as being interested in a particular part of the world.
I, with others, wanted to form an all-party ASEAN group because the Association of South-East Asian Nations is a particularly important grouping of nations, as hon. Members will know. As two member countries are members of the Commonwealth and three are members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, I had to go to considerable length with the IPU and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association to register the group. One of those to whom I spoke and from whom I had to seek permission did not know what the initials ASEAN represented. Therefore, we must consider the matter carefully.
Yesterday on the all-party Whip there was a meeting of the all-party Taiwan group. Her Majesty's Government do not have any diplomatic relations with the regime in Taiwan. I wondered whether it would appropriate if an all-party group for northern Cyprus were to be formed. That country has recently declared itself an independent republic. I wonder whether we shall find an all-party group for Khalistan, the nation which the Punjabis wish to fall.
I raise those matters because they are relevant to the same problem. It comes back to the question about registration. I see that the report assumes and states openly that
All-party groups under our recommendations would need to consist of members of more than one political party … there should be no question of the speakers being members of the group itself.
It goes on to refer to the fact that they would not need to be registered. In effect, there is a form of unofficial registration being organised by the Whips at the moment which is not entirely satisfactory. Whatever arrangements

are made for all-party groups—groups comprising mainly members outwith the House—they could also be considered for the formation of new all-party parliamentary groups which apply to Members of Parliament. One has to be careful when using the language that we normally use because the document is changing our normal language and that puts us into even more difficulty.
The report is important. It is the first time that: the House has discussed a report which deals with an abuse which we all know exists. I am worried about the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst. He made the point well. The adjective "parly" is not one that we should use to dignify a group without careful consideration. I urge my hon. Friend either to move the amendment or, if he withdraws it, only to do so in the tight of clear assurances that the point will be considered before any system is put into operation.

Mr. Gary Waller: I agree with many oF the anxieties expressed in the debate by my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann), the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin) and others. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) my eyes fell on the clause in paragraph 2 which says:
Some of the groups were believed to be using the House's status …
After that phrase the report confined itself to the status conferred by the accommodation in the House, which perhaps is not surprising as the inquiry was carried out by the Accommodation and Administration Sub-Committee of the Services Committee. As the debate has shown, hon. Members are concerned about much wider issues than accommodation. The description "parliamentary group" confers considerable status on any body using it. The media assume that such a group carries considerable weight.
I wish to mention two so-called parliamentary groups that have hit the headlines during the past year, but which many hon. Members would not regard as parliamentary groups in the commonly understood sense. Indeed, they are not mentioned in the fact sheet compiled by the Public Information Office, which lists about 80 groups. Unfortunately, I was unable to speak to the officers of the two groups before the debate. It is difficult to discover who they are.
One of the groups is described as the parliamentary group video inquiry. Hon. Members may recall that it created something of a rumpus when it produced apparent evidence that the overwhelming majority of children aged six years—and even under that—had seen pornographic videos. Various independent commentators who made their own inquiries produced contradictory evidence. The group's inquiry was carried out by a body that had little to do with Parliament. I understand that its chairman was a peer but that no hon. Member of this House attached his name to the inquiry. Yet that group probably received as much publicity during the past year as any Select Committee of the House, all-party group or party committee.
The other group is something called the parliamentary road safety advisory council. I do not know whom it advises, but it is not this House. I do not know what entitles it to call itself a council. One might think that road safety was not a contentious issue, but that group has said


that it is in favour of a number of contentious recommendations such as the compulsory wearing of rear seat belts. No doubt many hon. Members would agree with that, but many would not.
The fact that it is described as an advisory council lends a certain legitimacy to it in the eyes of the media. A television programme during the past month, which I did not see, devoted a great deal of attention to its report. Those who saw the programme or read about it in the press assumed that it was an official body. The report has probably attracted more attention than the official inquiry into road safety carried out by the Select Committee on Transport. Yet that group is not listed in the fact sheet supplied by the Public Information Office of the House.
For those reasons we should be concerned not only with accommodation but with the status conferred on a body that describes itself as a parliamentary group. Such groups would have no great problem with accommodation, but they also have no problem attracting a great deal of media attention because they are thought to have official status. I welcome the report and its recommendations but I hope that further attention will be given to the concerns that have been expressed so eloquently about the wider issues.

Mr. Bill Walker: This debate is long overdue. I speak as the chairman of the parliamentary scout group and it seems that the group would meet the criteria which has been set out. I have, therefore, no qualms about the criteria, and the fact that you, Mr. Speaker, allow the group to make use of the Speaker's House for its annual tea party shows that it is recognised as a legitimate body.
I speak also as the treasurer of the all-party industrial safety group. To my knowledge the group has not met for years and it seems that I am a treasurer with no funds. I am not quite so confident that the safety group would fulfil all the requirements that have been set out. I am not sure that all its members would be prepared to fork out £2, for example. I am concerned with safety in many areas, especially in the air, and to my knowledge the group has never directed itself to air safety. It seems that it would have a large question mark placed against it.
I would not object to the placing of that question mark because if we are to eradicate abuses we must be ruthless in the way in which we consider the intentions of groups, their history, what they are going to do and what they have done. The thoughtful speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) dealt effectively with that issue, as did the introductory remarks of the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin).
I believe that there is general concern about the way in which this place is being used. As we walk along corridors we see people we do not know and do not recognise. The

lobby is growing that promotes commercial or political interests in peculiar forms. The members of that lobby are not using the House as Members would like it properly and effectively to be used.
The parliamentary scout group meets once a year officially for its annual general meeting. It meets also as and when it is judged that imminent legislation is likely to have a major impact upon the scout movement. The group's object is to look after scouts' interests in Parliament. That means that it does not need very often to make use of parliamentary facilities and that is true of other groups. It should be recognised that this place is under pressure when legislation is introduced that is likely to have a substantial effect on the interests of various groups. When that happens there will be a number of meetings and at other times there will be few meetings. That is why the amendment, which was so well presented, is one that I can support. There must be a tightening up of criteria, which is why I drew attention to the safety group. As I have said, I doubt whether it could meet the criteria if we accept the amendment. It is on that basis that I accept the amendment.

Mr. Speaker: I call the Leader of the House.

The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): I had no intention of participating in this debate, but in response to such pressure who I am to resist? My hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) has also suggested that I comment. I want to make it clear that this is very much a House of Commons occasion. We are debating a report from an appropriate Services Sub-Committee. The right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Mr. Silkin) has said that he will take account of the representations about nomenclature. I hope that in that spirit we may proceed without a Division, because this is a most tangled subject to which we have been—I would not like to say lackadaisical—insufficiently expeditious. On reflection, we might believe that we could have been more expeditious. Tonight we have the opportunity to take matters forward. On the basis of experience and taking account of the points that have been argued, I hope that we may do so without a Division.

Amendment to the Question made.

At end add
'but considers that any group falling outside the recommended definition of all-party groups should not be entitled to use the term "parliamentary" but may be described as a registered group. '.—[Mr. Sims.]

Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House takes note with approval of the Second Report of the Select Committee on House of Commons (Services) (House of Commons Paper No. 256) but considers that any group falling outside the recommended definition of all-party groups should not be entitled to use the term "parliamentary" but may be described as a registered group.

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

Motion made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Lennox-Boyd.]

Mrs. Ann Clwyd: I have the same problem as the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Adley)—I do not have my spectacles either, but I hope that that will not impair the quality of the debate. I have been offered various pairs by my hon. Friends, but I shall, however, do my best without them. Last week, the Leader of the House—I am sorry that he is no longer in the Chamber—told me that the European Parliament has no influence. It appears that on matters of defence policy the House has even less influence. I hope during this debate to be proved wrong.
For more than two years the United States army and air force in Europe has been practising a strategy which their generals describe as "blitzkrieg". That is well documented in the "Military Review" of August 1984. The magazine has a graphic cover headed "Blitzkrieg and the Airland Battle" by Major-General John W. Woodmansee of the United States army. The article states:
The Airland Battle doctrine is producing significant changes in the way the Army operates on the battlefield. Combat units will possess expanded capabilities that will enable them to employ blitzkrieg-type techniques against larger enemy forces.
That is officially in United States parlance called "airland battle". Dozens of articles have appeared in the United States army professional journals describing the implementation of their strategy in every aspect, from logistic support to personnel files. The United States Congress has held numerous hearings on the subject. In almost all those hearings, Germany is the centrepiece of the discussions. The United States forces have signed joint army and air force "concepts" to implement the airland battle in training and operations. The most important was agreed in April 1983. Caspar Weinberger has told Congress that airland battle was used on NATO's Reforger 1982 exercise. It is now reported in the press that NATO is set to approve a similar policy in Europe under the title "FOFA"—follow-on forces attack. The "Christian Science Monitor" of 10 October 1984 states:
NATO sources expect defence ministers to approve this first major shift in alliance doctrine in nearly 20 years when they meet here in December. The sources say the NATO military committee has hacked such a concept and member-state ambassadors and experts are preparing the final wording for incorporation into allied planning.
In The Observer of 20 October 1984 Ian Mather, the defence correspondent, said:
Defence Ministers are to be asked to give formal approval to a new military strategy designed for fighting far inside enemy territory. Known as FOFA which stands for Follow-On Force Attack, the concept represents the first major shift in Alliance thinking for 20 years.
The article continues:
It has the backing of the Chiefs of Staff of all member countries, who sit together on NATO's Military Committee, the highest military body in the Alliance, and it has been accepted by the Defence Planning Committee, which consists of all"—
I stress "all"—
ambassadors to NATO. The final step is for the scheme to be approved by defence ministers at their annual meeting in Brussels in December.
Despite the mountain of evidence in the press stressing the reality and the danger of the policy of nuclear blitzkrieg, the Government have repeatedly denied that any major changes were in hand. In the Army debate a

week ago, I complained that a letter of mine dated 26 September to the Secretary of State for Defence had not been answered. Despite repeated questioning by many of my right hon. and hon. Friends, the Government have declined to make any statement on strategy on the Defence Estimates.
The Defence Select Committee has not and apparently does not plan to examine the issue. When I raised the subject in the Army debate, Conservative Members preferred to talk about girl guides and Army bands rather than matters of great significance and urgency.
I suggest that if the Government know what has been going on, they are guilty of seriously misleading the House. If they are ignorant, or have been bamboozled by the Pentagon, they do not deserve to remain in office. They can only lamely repeat the statement that they must know to be untrue.
On Monday 22 October, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement said:
There would be no question of any NATO country conducting a battle in a way that was inconsistent with NATO strategy. This applies to US forces as to any others. When under Allied command they will conform to NATO political and military principles."—[Official Report, 22 October 1984:, Vol. 65, c. 526.]
Those strategic changes have been discussed in great detail in virtually every current affairs programme and defence journal, but apparently they are too confidential to bring to the House.
It is a disgrace that the level of discussion in the House is not permitted to rise above the level of Certificate of Secondary Education level while the media debate is at Ph.D. level. The issues are serious. We cannot afford to risk the peace with a blitzkrieg airland battle. Documents and testimony on United States policy show clearly that earlier first use is recommended and an immediate counter-attack into East Germany and Czechoslovakia is suggested. It clearly believes that nuclear weapons can be used to win a military victory and, lastly, that Pershing II is regarded as "fire support".
United States Army document "US Army concept for airland battle" states:
Theatre forces should not be considered solely as a bridge to strategic nuclear war. They are weapons which must be considered in the context of a war-fighting capability. From the outset, it is acknowledged that in this scenario it would be advantageous to use tactical nuclear and chemical weapons at the early stage and in enemy territory.
The US Army Field Manual 100–5, 7–15, continues:
Nuclear weapons are particularly effective in engaging follow-on formations or forces in depth because of their inherent power and because of reduced concerns about troop safety and collateral damage.
I refer to a document of the Senate Armed Services Committee of 1983, under the title "Fire Support", and quote from an exchange between General Wagner and Senator Goldwater. General Wagner, in reply to Senator Goldwater, said:
Our fire support, and here I am basically talking about indirect fire support, runs from the borders which are up front, field artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, to the rear units JTACMS and Pershing II.
In reply to a written question from the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Latham) the Minister of State for the Armed Forces quoted a NATO document which said:
The Allies need no convincing that in such a war there would be no winners."—[Official Report, 11 June 1984; Vol. 61, c. 359.]
Yet the Government still say that there is no such concept as the one I have suggested this evening.
What is so dangerous is not simply the insanity of planning a nuclear blitzkrieg but that such a policy overturns the basis of NATO's claim to be a defensive alliance. Recently Lord Carrington said that our forces and exercises were purely defensive. That is obviously untrue. The concepts of airland battle and follow-on force attack—whatever they are called—are inherently offensive, as any sane person can see. That is why the Labour party's policy on defence is one that I commend to the Government and to the public at large.
We make clear in our defence statement that
the overriding priority of humanity must be the prevention of nuclear war and global holocaust. We are committed to a non-provocative, non-nuclear defence policy which will contribute to progress towards world-wide nuclear, chemical and conventional disarmament. We are realists. The process of disarmament will not occur overnight: it will be brought about by a process of independent steps by individual countries and by international agreements following patient negotiations. We will work to build trust and detente and make strenuous efforts to improve the international climate and, step by step, contribute to greater security for Britain and the world.
I suggest that as a first step the Government should vote at the United Nations for a verifiable multilateral freeze on the production, testing and deployment of nuclear weapons and delivery of carrier systems designed primarily for nuclear weapons. A freeze would stop the deployment of nuclear war fighting first strike weapons. It would buy time for future reduction and disarmament agreement. The Government should in any case announce an immediate halt to the testing, production and deployment of Britain's own nuclear weapons as a first step on the road to nuclear disarmament. They should vigorously press the United States to return to the comprehensive nuclear test ban negotiations.
At present Britain plays only a minor role in international disarmament and arms control negotiations. Like the Government, our party is committed to the fullest British participation in all relevant international arms negotiations. We deplore the build-up of nuclear arms by both the United States of America and the Soviet Union. We oppose all nuclear weapons. We believe that there can be no justification for adding to the existing overkill capacity by deploying cruise and Pershing II missiles or Soviet countermeasures.
If what I have said so far has not made the point, I should like to draw the attention of the House to an exclusive interview given by General Rogers to Reuters, printed in the International Herald Tribune on 26 October. The General attempts to dismiss airland and battle and present follow-on force attack as a purely conventional option. I think that I have demonstrated that airland battle cannot be dismissed and that follow-on force attack is not a conventional option. Regardless of hon. Members' views on those policies, both sides of the House should condemn the way in which the Government have misled hon. Members. Just three days before I received written answers refusing to say whether follow-on force attack had been agreed to by NATO's military committee, and would be debated by Ministers in December, General Rogers told journalists that both my allegations were true. I think that it is worth reading out the questions that I asked the Minister and the answers that I received. I asked the Secretary of State for Defence
what view of the follow on force attack concept has been taken by the NATO Military Committee.

The Minister of State replied:
Military Committee business is by its nature confidential.
I then asked the Secretary of State for Defence
whether the follow on force attack concept will be on the agenda of the December meeting of NATO Defence Ministers?
The Minister replied:
The business of the Ministerial Committee is confidential. A communique setting out the major conclusions of Ministers' discussions will be issued at the end of the meeting."—[Official Report, 29 October 1984; Vol. 65 c. 856.]
Yet General Rogers held a briefing for journalists and gave a press conference, but the House must still be kept in ignorance. He told the International Herald Tribune on 26 October that he hoped that
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation defence ministers would endorse the plan, known as 'follow-on force attack' … when they meet December 4–5 in Brussels.
In an interview at his headquarters here, General Rogers said the plan already had been approved by the 14 allied chiefs of staff in NATO's military committee …
General Rogers stressed that he did not advocate that NATO adopt the more far-reaching official US doctrine of air-land battle, which involves pre-emptive strikes and ground counteroffensives. 'That's hogwash,' said the former US Army chief of staff. 'What I'm talking about is the use of weapon systems and not masses of forces attacking to Prague or Warsaw'.
There we have it. In their replies Ministers have shown contempt for the House. We should have a full debate on the matter as soon as possible. Having seen the answers that one gets to questions in the House, I believe that there is much truth in the comments made by the New Statesman in an editorial on 6 July 1984. It says:
The problem is not the House of Lords, but the House of Commons. All the pomp, circumstance and tradition that surrounds the Commons conceals the fact that it is the most inefficient and feeble legislative body in the democratic world. As the saga of the paving Bill has once again demonstrated, the House of Commons is totally dominated by the executive. With its present working hours and practices vital Bills can and do pass through all their stages in the Commons half digested, often with the most perfunctory consideration of the issues and principles involved.
It continues:
Equally, this session's Police Bill and the Data Protection Bill, for example, will have a massive effect on the United Kingdom for decades. By the inadequate standards of the House of Commons, quite a lot of time was devoted to both these measures. By the standards of any other Western legislature Parliament played almost no part in leading an informed public debate on the issues involved.
Unless we have satisfactory answers from the Minister today, we should call for an immediate emergency debate on this subject because it is clear that, so far, in their answers and their failure to provide answers to hon. Members' questions Ministers have shown a certain contempt for the House. They have also shown contempt for the intelligence of the British public who can read every day in their newspapers about matters which I have raised today but which cannot be or have not yet been discussed on the Floor of the House of Commons.

Mr. Bill Walker: The hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) has spent some time commenting on what she regards as the inadequacies of this Parliament, but she has just made use of one of the vehicles at the disposal of Back Benchers to bring questions before the House. I believe that she may well find that this is a much better House than the one that she left and that Back Benchers can and often do bring about changes through the pressure that they put on the legislative body.
If fine words and fine speeches were all that is required to bring about trust between nations, there would be no problems. Hansard is full of fine words and fine speeches as, no doubt, is every Foreign Ministry in the world. Sadly, however, all those fine words have not brought about trust. We live in a world where trust is absent and we have to live in it as it is, not as we should like it to be. We should all like it to be quite different. In that world, in which we must, if we can, protect the peace for our children and our children's children, it would be most unwise to discard and throw away that which has given us peace in Europe for so many decades. If any alteration were to be made, the British people would have to be convinced that it was a sensible proposal.
The hon. Lady should reflect on the result of the last general election. The Labour party, not the Government, made an issue of defence in that election. The hon. Lady has only to look at the Labour Benches to realise the impact of that on the British electorate.

Mr. Gordon Brown: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Walker: In view of the time, I shall not give way.
If the hon. Member for Cynon Valley is a student of these matters, which she must be as she has brought the subject forward for debate, she will know that each generation of weapons brings new challenges and that both sides have to face the impact that the new weapons may have. She must also recognise, however, that NATO is a defensive alliance. All NATO's planning is designed to deal with attacks against NATO. The very description, "follow-on force attack" indicates that it would follow a force that had already attacked. Otherwise, there would be no need for a follow on. What would it be following if the other side had not already attacked with their early weaponry? It is important to recognise that the new generation of stand-off weapons, which are available to both sides of the iron curtain, have brought about new challenges because of the way in which they are deployed.
So far, both sides have maintained the peace because both sides believe that they have deterred the other. It is not what one thinks about one's own deterrent capability that is important—it is what the other side thinks. Equally, one cannot always advise the other side of the details of what one would do in a given set of circumstances. It would be a foolish general who told the other side what he proposed to do.
The hon. Lady, who has made a study of this, will realise that it is when the other side knows what one is likely to do that it can anticipate it and judge whether it would be viable for it to overcome what one is offering. In other words, things are going on all the time on both sides, some of which are explained in detail and some of which are not.
Usually, what is not explained in detail is important in defence, and information on the latest modern technology is not given out either in legislative assemblies or in the media. That is why NATO's tactical plans cannot be and should not be debated in public. We place a duty on our military personnel to study all the options that are open to them—should they ever be attacked—with the equipment that we have given them.
The hon. Lady mentioned the use of chemical weapons. She must know that the British Army of the Rhine has no chemical weapons, and it would be difficult for it to launch

a chemical attack, as she was suggesting. We set the world an example by disposing of our chemical weapons, but sadly that example was not followed. One of the lessons that I hope that we have all learnt is that good phrases, words and examples do not produce the responses that we want. In a world that lacks trust, but in which we are determined to maintain peace, we have a duty to our children and to our children's children not to put that peace at risk unnecessarily. The hon. Lady should think through carefully some of the comments that she made, and which she will read tomorrow in Hansard.
It is all very well for the hon. Lady to read out something written by someone else somewhere else. I am sure that there are Labour Members who have made a long study over many years of the tactical and other weapons that are available to our forces. After the last election, a Labour Member asked me why it was that he got such a poor response on Labour's defence policy from his constituents. I asked him whether, in the city that he was canvassing, many of the people in the age group 65-plus were hostile to what he was saying on defence. He said that they were, so I said that that should not surprise him because many of them were probably members of the 51st Highland Division, which went to France in 1939 to fight Hitler's tanks with pop guns, or the equivalent of pop guns. Those who did not die ended up in prison camp. Such people cannot be persuaded that one can disarm without there being any impact.
The hon. Lady does us a service by providing us with the opportunity to give that message again, while there are still enough people around who cannot be conned because they remember such events. In Europe, we require effective tactical plans and those plans should not be debated fully in public because we would be putting our troops at risk.

Mr. Ted Leadbitter: Over the years, we have discussed defence and national security many times. Often, the two sides of the House have found themselves locked into their own philosophies and party manifestos, and falling short of what the country requires of them. When my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clywd) referred to the New Statesman, she may well have touched the kernel of a problem. I do not believe, with the New Statesman, that we are one of the weakest of democratically elected bodies, but there is none the less a kernel of truth in the article. What is the point of considering defence and security if we do not have the information on which to base judgments?
Over the years, I have taken an interest in questions of security. During the second world war, I was involved as a young officer in the invasion of Dieppe. I was made very much aware at that time of the consequences of bad security. Many British lives have been lost because of bad security.
The House has a high degree of competence. There are men of great excellence on both sides of the House. They are capable of making judgments if they have the information. We are on the threshold of establishing a new committee system. We are beginning to monitor and scrutinise the Departments. As a democratically elected body we have a duty to be informed. The military commanders do not have a monopoly of wisdom in this field. They are highly competent, professionally, but, in terms of policy, we must have a say.
It is easy to be drawn into emotive discussions of our nuclear armouries. Many years ago, I had some involvement with the military college of science. Even in those days I was humbled by the rapidity of technological change. Today, however, the pace and momentum of change is frightening. The country must pause to think carefully about the resource input into new technology and nuclear weaponry. We may well find even in the short term that we have squandered resources on such weaponries. For instance, many people agree that Trident is not a good buy.

Mr. James Hill: Good-bye to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Leadbitter: I do not object to interventions, but an accident involving such weapons would be no laughing matter.
We are suffering from deprivation in many areas of social health such as the social services, education and housebuilding. Those are matters which affect the quality of life for ourselves and our children. The question of what proportions of our resources we devote to weaponry and to the quality of life is one on which hon. Members are far more competent to make a judgment than are the military.
I am not too excited about unilateral disarmament. Nobody has a monopoly of detestation of nuclear power. The House should never argue about who thinks best about the horror of the holocaust that might come about accidentally or deliberately. None of us wants to destroy civilisation but I am not persuaded that we can suddenly decide to disarm unilaterally and arm conventionally. It is not practically possible. We should have considerable difficulties that our friends in the free world would not understand if we did that. Moreover, a few years ago I heard no arguments about our belonging to NATO. Thank God there was no division of opinion on that years ago. NATO is important. If we consider unilateral disarmament in Britain, do we take the argument to its logical conclusion and insist that NATO should have no nuclear weapons? Our friends would not have that. We must be partners in the defence of the free world. The British people do not elect us to air the niceties of our political philosophies but to look after their interests. Whether we like it or not, there is a gut feeling in Britain that Parliament should stand firm in the defence of the realm.
How, then, do we reduce our nuclear arsenal? I see my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) standing outside the Bar of the House shaking his head. If he disagrees with me he should get in here and participate in the debate. Nobody was amused by the SALT talks, the START talks or by the so-called agreement at Helsinki. They were the farce of the theatre. Statesmen had little walks in the woods thinking that people would be excited by the confidentially of it all. We must go for nuclear disarmament in a way that sustains the confidence of the Alliance and our relationships in NATO. The best way to achieve mutal agreement is not to make hurried decisions such as "We shall have no nuclear weapons and go straight over to conventional ones." Britain's industrial infrastructure would not let that happen. People in the industry would not do it. We must negotiate.
Some people might ask me where I stand on party policy. As far as I am aware, party policy has not been

determined. The defence debate has been drawn out and involves many people. We must keep certain options open. Many of us were unhappy with President Reagan's statements when the presidential election was a long way off. His tune has changed as the election has come closer. Many of us have been disturbed by statements by the military who are responsible for our affairs in Europe. By all means be critical of them, but I should like to hear someone talk about the attitudes of our potential enemies. I want to know why we are so heavily critical of our friends and not so hasty to criticise our enemies. Some countries are not well disposed to Great Britain. I know people who have visited Russia, as I have. They come back with some sort of understanding of the position there.

It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Lennox-Boyd.]

Mr. Leadbitter: We must tell the Russians that they must get round the table and discuss these matters. Although those who visit Russia leave with a special understanding of it, they also have an added duty—to understand our position.
Before the last war I heard all this talk. We were within a hair's breadth of being defeated. The Falklands conflict was the last time when we were involved in a conventional war which involved the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. I strongly believe that it could have been avoided. Nobody would dare to say that we were within a hair's breadth of being defeated in that conflict, but ammunition supplies were worryingly low.
We should not talk about changing the balance of power on instant reaction judgments. We must agree to want a reduction in nuclear armaments and to get rid of the mountains of nuclear warheads that could destroy the entire civilised world. Great Britain must get other nations to do that by mutual agreement. If we cannot reach mutual agreement, we must tell our allies and NATO what we want, but we must maintain a line to NATO. Does anyone believe that we shall feel easy in our beds at night if NATO is weakened, if we withdraw from NATO tomorrow or if America went back to the Monroe doctrine?
The great struggle in the world is for energy. An examination of the world shows that about 68 per cent. of manganese and 72 per cent. of copper is in South Africa. Copper is needed for telecommunications and is essential for military purposes. We need £1,300 worth of chromium for one modern aeroplane. When one considers the amount of attention that Russia is giving to Africa, one realises that today's struggle is for energy. Energy is needed to keep nations alive, and people are prepared to fight for it.
I am convinced from my experience of war and of peacetime before the second world war that we had better be strong. We should not sell this country the right sort of bargain if we hastily begin actions that satisfy our party conferences but not the people at large. There is nothing wrong with telling the people that we shall be strong enough so that we shall never surrender, but we shall be wise enough to negotiate and to have as many fail-safe systems as we can to minimise the effects of accidents. If we must criticise our friends, let us also criticise our potential enemies. Nothing will serve Britain worse than if we try to resolve short-term problems quickly. It would be wiser to seek long-term benefits through patient negotiation.
I feel very strongly about one point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley. I will not hear it said that the House of Commons is inefficient. Many hon. Members work extremely hard in Committees in the House, and I wish to know where there is another assembly in the world where all the stages of a Bill are properly thrashed out hour after hour, morning, afternoon and night, not only in this place but in the other place. Let us not diminish the House of Commons. There are plenty of people outside who wish to do that. We should defend it.

Mr. Nicholas Brown: I am pleased to be able to make a short contribution to this important debate. I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for preserving the tradition whereby people with slightly different views are called to speak one after the other. Although I have tremendous respect for my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Leadbitter), I do not wholly share his views on this matter. I am committed to the defence policy of the Labour party. I am committed to membership of NATO, as is the Labour party——

Mr. Bill Walker: Just.

Mr. Brown: I shall say what the Labour party stands for, not Conservative Members. They should content themselves with saying what the Conservative party stands for. The Labour party is committed to NATO, but it is also committed to unilateral nuclear disarmament.
The hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) said that the Labour party may have lost the general election because of its defence policy, but I fundamentally disagree with that. We lost the election because we failed to explain our defence policy. The media and spokesmen for the Conservative party tried to make it clear that the Labour party wished somehow to disarm the entire nation, but that is completely untrue. The Labour party is committed to a conventional defence policy—to the sort of defence policy of almost every other nation. Only a few countries have defence policies based on nuclear weapons.
To suggest that Britain is still in the same league as the United States or the Soviet Union is to take history back about 100 years. It is wrong to suggest that Britain is still an imperial power with a duty to bestride the entire world. That is a backward-looking approach to foreign policy. The Labour party lost the election because it did not explain its policies properly and because it allowed the Conservative party, through its friends in the press and the media, completely to distort our policies.

Mr. David Atkinson: The hon. Gentleman said that the Labour party did not explain its defence policy at the last election. He ought to come to the working areas of my constituency, where he will find that people who supported the Labour party for many years turned out wearing their medals to vote Conservative because they disagreed with Labour's defence policy.

Mr. Brown: I am happy to take up that offer. If the hon. Gentleman arranges a joint meeting in his constituency to discuss defence policy, I shall happily stand alongside him so that we can each explain the policies of our parties. I urge him to accept.
It is wrong to say that our defence policy will be based on a nuclear deterrent that we possess independently. I challenge any Conservative Member to describe the circumstances in which our nation, regardless of the

Americans, would independently use its nuclear deterrent against the Soviet Union. I challenge them to describe the result for the people among whom I live on Tyneside. We would all be dead. That is not a defence policy but a suicide policy, and it is quite unacceptable to my constituents and me.

Mr. Nicholas Soames: The deterrent has worked triumphantly for so long because an enemy can never be sure that one day it would not be used. That is the whole point of the independent nuclear deterrent.

Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman will not play nuclear poker with my life or the lives of my constituents. I do not accept what he has said. Whatever the arguments for the Americans' nuclear deterrent or the Soviet Union's nuclear deterrent, the idea that the Government should pursue a policy that confines nuclear warfare to Europe and gets us killed is fundamentally wrong and stupid. It is the Government's duty to move the world away from nuclear proliferation rather than towards it. This nation should be saying that nuclear war in Europe looks back into the pages of history rather than forward.
If the United Kingdom says that it must have nuclear weapons, countries of similar size and with similar economies can also demand them as well, and there are now a substantial number of countries whose economies are stronger than ours. They may say that they will waste that strength on the development of nuclear armaments, but the more nation states that possess such weapons, the more likelihood that such weapons will be used. The Government should behave responsibly and try to move the civilised world away from the possession of nuclear arsenals rather than insisting on having them. If we insist on having such an arsenal, every other country with the resources to have one has the moral right to use the same argument.
The hon. Member for Tayside, North spoke of not giving our plans away. That was a sensible point, sensibly made. But if we endorse the use of nuclear weapons confined to Europe we are giving our plans away. If, having lost a conventional military battle, we can conceive of using nuclear weapons, we are more or less telling our nuclear armed opponents, "You hit us before we hit you". By doing so we bring the nuclear holocaust closer rather than pushing it further away. In particular, we bring it down on our own heads. I can think of no nation less fitted to survive a nuclear attack or to take part in a nuclear war than this one. I therefore urge moves that lead away from that rather than towards it.

The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. John Stanley): The House will be grateful to the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) for raising the subject of follow-on forces attack, which has exercised Labour Members considerably over the past few months. I hope to be able to dispel some of the misconceptions under which she is labouring.
The issue has initiated a wider debate on the Adjournment than we would usually have at the close of business in the House. We were glad to have a sound and common-sense contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker). We were also interested to hear the voice of—I hope the hon. Gentleman will not mind me saying—the old Labour


party in the speech of the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Leadbitter), and the new Labour party in the shape of the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne (Mr. Brown). The hon. Member for Hartlepool made the best speech on behalf of the Opposition that we have heard from either the Back or the Front Benches in the present Session. The only regret is that I fear that the hon. Gentleman is in a decreasing minority within his party.
It is also fitting that the 1983–84 Session of Parliament, which has seen such a great deal of parliamentary interest in many aspects of defence and strategy should conclude with this Adjournment debate.
Undoubtedly much of this parliamentary interest has focused on NATO's strategy, on the role of nuclear and conventional weapons in that strategy, and on the evolution in our tactics and our weapons systems that is needed to ensure that NATO continues to provide a credible deterrent to the growing Soviet and Warsaw pact threat—a threat that we updated in our Statement on the Defence Estimates earlier this year.
Much the most serious misconception that has been repeated again and again from the Opposition Benches during this last Session, is that NATO is seeking to embrace offensive strategies and offensive military doctrine. That, of course, is the incorrect allegation endlessly repeated by the Soviet propaganda machine. It is certainly disappointing to find it repeated by Opposition Members—and again, I am afraid, by the hon. Member for Cynon Valley in her speech—when it has no foundation in reality whatever.
I can only reiterate that NATO is a purely defensive Alliance. As was made clear in the declaration of Brussels in December last year:
Our alliance threatens no one. None of our weapons will ever be used except in response to attack.

Mr. Roland Boyes: rose——

Mr. Stanley: No, I shall not give way because I have only a brief time in which to speak.
What is true of NATO is equally true of its most powerful member, the United States. As President Reagan said in his speech on East-West relations in Washington on 6 January:
Our challenge is peaceful … We do not threaten the Soviet Union".
It cannot be emphasised too often that NATO's posture is a solely defensive one. NATO has no aggresive designs on anyone; NATO threatens no one, and NATO has no military strategies based on initiating conflict.
What then is NATO's defensive strategy and what is the relationship of follow-on forces attack to it? NATO's strategy is one of deterrence based on forward defence and flexibility in response to aggression. That strategy was adopted by the Alliance in 1967 following the attainment of strategic parity by the Soviet Union. The Alliance believes that the strategy remains credible and viable in the political and military situation that faces us in Europe today. We see no justification for changing it and we do not believe that any credible alternative exists to forward defence and flexible response.
Let me explain the key principles on which NATO's deterrent strategy of forward defence and flexible response

rests. First, it rests on a manifest determination on the part of all members of the Alliance to act jointly and to defend NATO's treaty area against all forms of aggression.
Secondly, it rests on a clear Alliance capability to respond effectively at all levels of aggression so as to convince the aggressor that he has miscalculated and should discontinue his attack. Thirdly, it rests on a flexibility in options for response that would prevent the Soviet Union from predicting with confidence NATO's response to a specific act of aggression, and lead it to conclude that an unacceptable degree of risk would be involved in any act of aggression, regardless of its nature, place or timing.
In short, for deterrence to be maintained by NATO's purely defensive alliance, a potential aggressor must be sure that NATO has the political will to respond to aggression, sure that NATO has the military capability to respond to aggression, and unsure precisely as to what form that military response will take.
It is against that background that I want to turn to the threat posed by Soviet and other Warsaw pact follow-on forces and the follow-on-forces attack concept that is currently under consideration in NATO to meet that threat.
As is well known, the Warsaw pact's capability to consolidate any significant territorial gains in the conventional phase of hostilities would be critically, if not wholly, dependent on its ability to mobilise sufficient second echelon forces and move them forward before the arrival of large-scale NATO, and in particular American, reinforcements.
For the Soviets, the first 10 to 15 days would be critical. In that period, the Warsaw pact would be able to mobilise up to 35 divisions in the western military districts of the USSR for operations against central Europe, plus 10 lower category divisions in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Those would form the follow-on forces to the 57 divisions that are at high states of readiness and ready to move in the first echelons, including Soviet and other Warsaw pact forces stationed in East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Large numbers of fixed wing aircraft and helicopters from the western military districts might also be committed in that first 10 to 15 days.
First United States reinforcements will arrive quickly by air. Unlike the Warsaw pact, which can bring up reinforcements across its own territory, a significant part of allied reinforcements would need to cross the Atlantic. Our ability to destroy and disrupt Warsaw pact follow-on forces is, therefore, of great importance in maintaining the credibility and effectiveness of our conventional deterrence—an aspect of our defence posture I understood Opposition Members to favour.
There is no doubt that in recent years the Warsaw pact has been strengthening its second echelon forces substantially. For example, many divisions have re-equipped with the T72 and T80 tanks, the most modern in the Soviet inventory. Self-propelled artillery is steadily replacing towed artillery and the total number of guns in formations has been significantly increased. New tactical battlefield missiles with greater accuracy have replaced older types. The adding of infantry units to tank formations has greatly increased the latter's flexibility and combat effectiveness. Such increases in capability are in line with the general upgrading of all Warsaw pact forces and are


designed to ensure that Warsaw pact follow-on forces are no less capable than the leading echelons when they are committed to battle.
It is not surprising, therefore—and it is wholly consistent with NATO's defensive posture and its existing strategy of forward defence and flexible response—that NATO should be paying attention to Warsaw pact follow-on forces and should be developing its response to that particular aspect of the threat. The Government intend to play a full and constructive part in that process.
The hon. Lady seems to be under the misapprehension that there is some radical new departure in NATO devising means of combating the threat from Warsaw pact second echelon forces. That is most certainly not the case. NATO has long possessed the conventional capability to strike deep into enemy territory if attacked. Its tactical planning has long provided for the interdiction of enemy airfields and the disruption of his second echelon forces and other high value targets.
If the Alliance is not developing a new strategy what is it doing by way of the follow-on force attack concept? What the Alliance is doing, and has indeed been striving to do for many years, is to improve its conventional capability and to achieve a more effective implementation of its existing strategy of flexible response.
What is new is that the exploitation of emerging technology now in prospect over the next decade might enable the Alliance to increase its conventional capability and to do so at an affordable cost. Emerging technology can be applied in all theatres of war—at sea, on land, and in the air. The United Kingdom already has much high technology in its forward equipment programmes for all three services. Some of it was mentioned during the Army debate last week.
Much has been made of the possibility of using this technology to enhance NATO's deep-strike capability and to enable NATO forces to undertake interdiction missions at greater range and with more chance of success. However, we should not be unduly diverted or mesmerised by the deep-strike options that technology might or might not provide. Interdiction of second echelon or follow-on forces is only one facet—albeit the most frequently quoted—of new technologies and of the tactics to accompany them. As I have explained to the House, it is not a new idea; but it is a very difficult mission.
I shall outline some of the problems and the issues with which NATO is grappling. Deep strike by means of conventional weapons is likely to be an expensive business. For example, an ability to strike mobile second echelon targets would involve very advanced and costly surveillance and target acquisition systems which could be of limited effectiveness.
Moreover, while there is advantage in striking deep, NATO's top priority must continue to be adequate defence against first echelon attack. This must have first call on available resources. There is little merit in destroying Warsaw pact follow-on forces if NATO forces can not hold the first echelon.
Emerging technology is not a panacea for all NATO's problems. Indeed, it could be positively damaging were it to lead to the diversion of funds from other critical areas and the loss of other vital elements of deterrence. We need to consider carefully therefore the rate of introduction of new technology and the balance between the quality and the quantity of the new equipment we can afford.
We must also keep a continuous watch on the implications for arms control negotiations of the introduction of new types of conventional, as well as nuclear weapons, in Europe.
These are some of the problems that we and NATO collectively face in determining priorities for sensible and affordable exploitation of emerging technology. New technologies provide an opportunity for evolving tactics. We must establish clear tactical concepts which we can translate into equipment priorities to ensure that we strengthen rather than weaken overall deterrence.
NATO is now actively engaged on that process. The NATO military experts are developing a conceptual framework against which we can determine our priorities for the exploitation of emerging technology. They are also preparing a series of long-term planning guidelines to facilitate that process.
NATO's machinery provides for full consultation and discussion between the allies on the development of defence planning, including specific and agreed procedures for dealing with FOFA and other long-term planning guidelines. FOFA is still under consideration as part of that established consultative process.
What the House can be assured, however, is that we would be failing in our responsibility to maintain the effectiveness of conventional deterrence if we simply ignored the growing threat posed by Warsaw pact second echelon forces. We have not ignored that threat in the past and we should not do so now. There is therefore nothing novel in the consideration that NATO is currently giving to this matter. It represents no change whatever in NATO's wholly defensive posture.
By developing a counter to the signficant offensive capability of Warsaw pact second echelon forces we are simply strengthening deterrence and helping to safeguard the peace with freedom that. Western Europe has enjoyed for nearly 40 years.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners:

The House went:—and, having returned:

Royal Assent

11 pm

Mr. Speaker: I have to acquaint the House that the House has been to the House of Peers where a Commission under the Great Seal was read, authorising the Royal Assent to the following Acts:
1. Roads (Scotland) Act 1984
2. Building Act 1984
3. Foster Children (Scotland) Act 1984
4. Co-operative Development Agency and Industrial Development Act 1984
5. Rent (Scotland) Act 1984
6. Ordnance Factories and Military Services Act 1984
7. Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984
8. Norwich City Council Act 1984
9. Warwick District Council Act 1984
10. London Transport Act 1984
11. Kingston upon Hull Act 1984
12. Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1984

Prorogation

Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech

Mr. Speaker: I have further to acquaint the House that the Lord High Chancellor, one of the High Commissioners, delivered Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech to both Houses of Parliament, in pursuance of Her Majesty's Command. For greater accuracy, I have obtained a copy and directed that the terms of the Speech be printed in the Votes and Proceedings. Copies are being made available in the Vote Office.

The Gracious Speech was as follows:

My Lords and Members of the House of Commons

The Duke of Edinburgh and I were pleased to receive the State Visits of His Highness the Amir of Bahrain in April and the President of the French Republic and Madame Mitterrand last week.

We look back with much pleasure to the visits we have made over the past year. As Head of the Commonwealth I was in New Delhi on the occasion of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November. We paid State Visits to Kenya, Bangladesh and India in November and Jordan in March. Our thoughts are with the people of India today following the tragedy of Mrs. Gandhi's assassination. We visited France in June, to attend the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of D-Day. We were in Canada in September and October for the bicentenary celebrations of New Brunswick and Ontario, and to visit Manitoba.

My Government welcomed the independence of Saint Christopher and Nevis, Brunei's resumption of full responsibility for its own external relations, and the decision of both countries to join the Commonwealth.

My Government have sustained Britain's contribution to Western defence, playing an active part in the Atlantic Alliance. They welcomed Lord Carrington's appointment as its Secretary-General. In the absence of an arms control agreement, my Government fulfilled their undertaking to begin the deployment of cruise missiles by the end of 1983.

My Government, with the United Kingdom's allies, have worked vigorously for balanced and verifiable arms control and disarmament and have sought to improve relations with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. They fully supported the United States' efforts to achieve nuclear arms reductions and their readiness to resume the negotiations suspended by the Soviet Union.

My Government agreed with other Member States on a fair sharing of the European Community's budget burden and on control of Community spending. They have made proposals for new Community policies.

My Government were hosts to the London Economic Summit in June and welcome its conclusions.

My Government have continued fully to discharge their obligations to the people of the Falkland Islands, while seeking more normal relations between this country and Argentina. They have conducted talks with China on the future of Hong Kong and published the text of a draft agreement. They have been helping with the conversion of the Royal Navy Dockyard in Gibraltar to commercial operation.

My Government have continued to support efforts to restore the independent and non-aligned status of Afghanistan and to settle the tragic conflict between Iran and Iraq. They have welcomed moves to reduce tension in


Southern Africa, and continue to support peaceful change there and the early independence of Namibia. They supported United Nations efforts to settle the Cyprus question.

Members of the House of Commons

I thank you for the provision which you have made for the honour and dignity of the Crown and for the public services.

My Lords and Members of the House of Commons

My Government have maintained the policies necessary to reduce inflation and sustain economic recovery. Inflation remains low and the output of the nation continues to increase. Steps have been taken to increase incentives and to improve the climate for enterprise, the creation of wealth, and adaptability and efficiency in industry and commerce. Measures have been taken to help the unemployed into jobs, to launch a comprehensive foundation training scheme for young people starting working life, and to improve vocational education and adult training.

In order to promote economic efficiency and growth, my Government have continued their policies of exposing state-owned businesses to competition and returning them to the private sector where appropriate. Legislation has been passed to end British Telecom's exclusive privilege of running telecommunications systems, to establish arrangements for the licensing and regulation of telecommunications systems, and to prepare the way for the sale of British Telecom's shares. An Act has been passed to enable the introduction of private finance into the Royal Ordnance Factories. The disposal of oil assets of the British Gas Corporation has been successfully completed.

Legislation has been passed to provide for reforms in the tax system, especially for companies, in the interest of greater economic efficiency, to encourage the further development of United Kingdom oil and gas resources by abolishing royalties for certain new fields, and to provide a framework for the development of cable programme services and direct broadcasting by satellite. An Act has been passed to ensure continued funding for the Cooperative Development Agency and to introduce a new scheme of Regional Development grants.

Legislation has been passed to give trade union members greater democratic control over their unions.

An Act has been passed to protect ratepayers by limiting rate increases by high-spending local authorities, and to provide reserve powers for general limitation of rates. Legislation has been passed making interim arrangements for the Greater London Council and the metropolitan county councils pending a decision by Parliament on the obolition of those authorities.

Acts have been passed to extend the right of public sector tenants to buy their homes, to reform the system of building control in England and Wales, and to assist purchasers of public sector houses which have proved to be defective. Legislation has been passed to make more farming tenancies available in England and Wales, and to make other improvements in the law relating to agricultural tenancies.

An Act has been passed transferring control of London Transport from the Greater London Council to the Government.

Legislation has been passed to modernise and clarify the law of England and Wales governing the investigation of crime and evidence in criminal proceedings, to strengthen the ties between the police and the community there and to extend powers l'o prevent acts of terrorism and increase safeguards for people subject to such powers.

An Act has been passed to introduce important new safeguards for individuals about whom information is held on computers.

Legislation has been passed to improve family law and its administration in England and Wales, to clarify the liability of occupiers of premises to persons other than their visitors and to amend the law concerning limitation of actions.

My Government has continued to work for higher standards in education, announcing proposals on the school curriculum, examinations and increasing the influence of parents over their children's schooling. Legislation has been passed to enable grants to be paid to local education authorities in England and Wales for improvements and innovations.

Legislation has been passed to replace noncontributory invalidity pensions with a severe disablement allowance. My Government has also embarked on a series of fundamental reviews of the social security system, seeking to ensure that this large programme operates effectively and in ways suited to present day needs.

My Government has taken further action to ensure that patients receive the best value for money spent on the National Health Service.

My Government has encouraged Northern Ireland's elected representatives to seek arrangements, acceptable across the community, whereby responsibilities can be returned to local administration. A high priority has been given to the maintenance of law and order and support for the Northern Ireland economy.

For Scotland, measures have been passed to extend the rights of public sector tenants, and to improve the legislation governing rating and valuation, promotion of tourism overseas, roads and inshore fisheries.

My Lords and Members of the House of Commons

I pray that the blessing of Almighty God may attend you.

Thereafter a Commission for proroguing Parliament was read, after which the Lord Chancellor said:
My Lords and Members of the House of Commons

By virtue of Her Majesty's Commission which has been now read we do, in Her Majesty's name, and in obedience to Her Majesty's Commands, prorogue this Parliament to Tuesday the sixth day of November, to be then here holden, and this Parliament is accordingly prorogued to Tuesday the sixth day of November next.

End of the First Session (opened on 15 June 1983) of the Forty-Ninth Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in the Thirty-Third Year of the Reign of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second.